Infectious Disease Regulatory Watch: March Highlights

This is our monthly column looking at federal regulatory topics including recent decisions, personnel changes, and news related to the agencies and infectious disease.

As has been the case for the last few months there has been a lot of news coming from the federal agencies. Starting with reports that HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) are seriously discussing the possibility of removing COVID-19 vaccines off the US market. The first ACIP meeting of 2026 has been postponed twice—once in February and once in March—but it appears they are planning to discuss items such as the vaccines’ safety, and long COVID.

Contagion spoke with Robert Hopkins Jr, MD, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) who offered some commentary around the potential consequences, including increasing morbidity and mortality rates, if the federal government removed these vaccines.

Amicus Brief Filed

In February, 100 college deans and scholars along with multiple professional organizations filed an amicus brief in US District Court.¹ The brief supports the lawsuit brought last July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others against Kennedy. It asserts that changes to the pediatric vaccine schedule, reducing the number of vaccines recommended by the ACIP was made without following ACIP's longstanding procedural safeguards.¹

"Defendants' actions will depress vaccination rates and cause increased vaccine-preventable outbreaks, preventable hospitalizations and unnecessary deaths. Medically underserved communities and the safety-net providers who serve them will disproportionately suffer the consequences," the brief asserts.¹

New Acting CDC Director Named

Jayanta "Jay" Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, was named acting director for the CDC. Prior to this appointment, Bhattacharya served as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) director.² Bhattacharya replaces the former acting director of the CDC, Jim O’Neil.

Back in 2020, Bhattacharya was a coauthor of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for the barring of pandemic-response lockdown policies and resumption of in-person professional and recreational activities for younger, low-risk persons. Although Bhattacharya is serving within a Health and Human Services department that has viewed vaccines with skepticism and worked to change vaccine policy in the US, at a recent Senate hearing he did say, “I have not seen a study that suggests any single vaccine causes autism.” He also said that he did not believe the measles vaccine causes autism. This is in direct opposition to the position of Secretary Kennedy’s past remarks around vaccines and autism.

Check back next month for more news and commentary around the ACIP’s postponed meeting and the judicial ruling affecting its status.

References

1.Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, American College of Chest Physicians, American Thoracic Society, Network for Public Health Law, & 119 Deans, Chairs, and Public Health and Health Policy Scholars. (2025). Brief of amici curiae in support of plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction (Amicus brief). American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Kennedy et al., No. 1:25‑cv‑11916 (D. Mass.). Accessed February 10, 2026.

https://hpmmatters.publichealth.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs6671/files/2026-02/AAP%20v.%20Kennedy%20Deans%20and%20Scholars%20Amicus%20brief_020626.pdf.

2. Acting Director. CDC. February 18, 2026. Accessed February 19, 2026. Accessed March 19, 2026.
https://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/director.html