A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration likely engaged in illegal retaliation against the American Academy of Pediatrics for not kowtowing to the government’s new position on childhood vaccines, and ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to restore $12 million to the outfit.
The pediatrics group has been battling HHS over the Trump administration’s revised recommendations that cut the number of vaccines recommended for children. The academy has vociferously disagreed with those cuts and filed a lawsuit over how the changes were made.
U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, an Obama appointee, said the administration then took adverse action, canceling seven current grants that HHS had previously awarded to the academy, all while Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hurled insults at the organization.
The judge also cited HHS’ move to oust its entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replace it with opponents of the AAP.
Judge Howell said that seemed like a clear case of illegal retaliation, and she issued a preliminary injunction ordering the money to be restored.
“HHS was never free to retaliate with terminations of grant awards to recipients engaging in protected First Amendment speech disfavored by current HHS leadership, and the public suffers no harm when HHS is restrained from doing so,” Judge Howell wrote in her ruling late Sunday.
The vaccine changes have proved deeply controversial.
For example, HHS no longer routinely recommends the vaccine for COVID-19 or hepatitis B for children, though the AAP still does. It’s the first time in 30 years that the recommendations of HHS and the academy have differed, Judge Howell said.
Mr. Kennedy says the academy is beholden to pharmaceutical companies. The head of the academy said HHS was trying to “sow distrust” of vaccines more generally.
The AAP has also taken an adversarial approach to the Trump administration on its attempt to limit certain transgender case treatments for children, with the academy insisting those are decisions to be made by a doctor and patient.
Judge Howell, in her ruling, insisted she wasn’t taking sides in those debates, but did cite AAP’s claim that it is “the best resource for information for pediatricians.
She said the academy must be allowed to argue for its positions free from fear of government retaliation.
“This is not a case about whether AAP or HHS is right or even has the better position on vaccinations and gender-affirming care for children, or any other public health policy,” she wrote. “This is a case about whether the federal government has exercised power in a manner designed to chill public health policy debate by retaliating against a leading and generally trusted pediatrician-member professional organization focused on improving the health of children.”
