The Trump administration has appealed a March order blocking key vaccine policy changes implemented or backed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Government lawyers on April 29 appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
They have not yet filed their brief.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy for the District of Massachusetts on March 16 ruled for the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups that challenged changes to vaccine recommendations.
Murphy said that Kennedy and other officials did not follow proper procedure in implementing the changes. He also said Kennedy failed to follow federal law and rules when selecting members for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), after removing the previous members.
Murphy blocked changes made by the CDC to the vaccine guidance in accordance with advice from the panel. He also stayed updates to the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule that officials announced in January, which are based on a review of peer nation schedules ordered by President Donald Trump and include the narrowing of recommendations for shots against COVID-19 and rotavirus.
Murphy said that the update was arbitrary and capricious because it “abandoned the agency’s longstanding practice of getting recommendations from ACIP before changing the immunization schedules without sufficient explanation.”
The ruling resulted in the cancellation of an ACIP meeting that had been set to go over injuries suffered after COVID-19 vaccination.
The government had faced a May 15 deadline to appeal the preliminary injunction.
Officials had been considering disbanding the advisory panel and appointing new advisers, among other options. Kennedy took one step earlier in April, changing ACIP’s charter to loosen membership criteria.
In a statement, Richard Hughes, a lawyer for the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups that sued over the vaccine policy changes, expressed disappointment that the administration appealed.
Hughes, a former Moderna executive, said he was confident that the plaintiffs would prevail on appeal and said they would bring an end to Kennedy’s “steady destruction of vaccine policy and public health.”
In a previous statement, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesman said, “We look forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”
Several orders from Murphy in unrelated cases have been overturned by appellate judges.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote on X on March 16 that Murphy’s ruling was “lawless” and that the administration “will keep winning” against such decisions.
Reuters contributed to this report.