Written by AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe
NEW YORK (AP) On Monday, a consortium of medical associations and public health groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government for ceasing to prescribe the COVID-19 vaccine for the majority of children and expectant mothers.
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An unidentified pregnant hospital employee, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and four other organizations filed the complaint in federal court in Boston.
U.S. health officials previously recommended that all Americans aged 6 months and older receive an annual COVID-19 vaccination, in accordance with the advice of infectious disease experts. However, in late May, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared that the COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for pregnant women and healthy children.
Numerous medical professionals criticized the action as perplexing and charged Kennedy with ignoring the decades-old scientific review procedure, which involves specialists openly evaluating the most recent medical data and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of proposed policy changes.
These worries are reiterated in the latest lawsuit, which claims that Kennedy and other political appointees at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have disregarded federal law and made repeated attempts to deceive the public.
According to Richard H. Hughes IV, the plaintiffs’ main lawyer, “this administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are just getting started.” If Secretary Kennedy’s goal of purging the US of immunizations is allowed to continue unchecked, it would cause a tsunami of avoidable injury to our country’s children.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by HHS officials.
The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the Massachusetts Public Health Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American College of Physicians are all parties to the lawsuit.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Department of Science Education of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute provide support to the Associated Press Health and Science Department. All content is entirely the AP’s responsibility.
