The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and four other major national public health groups filed a lawsuit on Monday against President Donald Trump‘s Secretary of Health & Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Kennedy announced in May that he “couldn’t be more pleased that, as of today, the Covid vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedules.”
The lawsuit accuses Kennedy of “acting arbitrarily and capriciously when he unilaterally changed Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant people,” and charges that “a coordinated set of actions by HHS and Secretary Kennedy were designed to mislead, confuse, and gradually desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric, and that he has routinely flouted federal procedural rules.”
An anonymous pregnant physician, who is “at immediate risk for being unable to get the Covid-19 vaccine booster because of the Secretarial Directive, despite her high risk for exposure to infectious diseases from working as a physician at a hospital,” has also joined the lawsuit.
Heavy-hitters bringing this lawsuit:
American Academy of Pediatrics
American College of Physicians
American Public Health Assn
Infectious Diseases Society of America
Society for Maternal-Fetal MedsAlso a MA public health group + a pregnant woman unable to get a COVID vaccine
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) July 7, 2025
MAGA supporters are voicing their opposition to the lawsuit on social media with claims that the plaintiffs suing Kennedy are “funded by big pharma companies” including Pfizer and Moderna, producers of COVID vaccines.
Note: AAP lists its corporate partners on its website, which includes Moderna and Merck (not Pfizer), and writes: “A partnership does not imply endorsement of an organization’s policies, products, or services and only begins after carefully reviewing factors such as corporate citizenship, shared values, and policy alignment.”
As seen below, AAP president Dr. Susan Kressly also criticized Kennedy for dismissing the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which develops vaccine recommendations, and reminded Americans that AAP has published its own immunization schedule for decades, and “we’ll continue to do so because kids can’t wait for politicians to sort this out.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics is proud to stand with leading public health organizations by taking legal action to protect the integrity of our immunization system to defend science, evidence-based medicine, and the policies that keep children safe. https://t.co/bmaQ4Z6N6O pic.twitter.com/k4RfYW1O9h
— American Academy of Pediatrics (@AmerAcadPeds) July 7, 2025
[Note: In June 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) stated that it “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.” In an attempt to reopen schools, then-president Trump cited AAP’s statement repeatedly (which the organization later walked back their support due to political pressure from teachers’ unions).]