Attorney General James Sues Secretary Kennedy to Protect Children from Dangerous Vaccine Rollbacks
NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced a lawsuit against U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to restore the science-based childhood vaccine schedule that has protected American children for decades. In January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new vaccine schedule that stopped recommending seven vaccines for all children, including vaccines that protect against hepatitis B, influenza, RSV, and meningitis. Now, Attorney General James is joining 15 other states in a lawsuit arguing that the new schedule ignored decades of scientific evidence, cut out the experts and public input required by law, and will leave more children sick, hospitalized, or worse. The coalition is also challenging Secretary Kennedy’s decision to abruptly fire all 17 voting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the expert federal panel that has guided U.S. vaccine policy for decades, and replace them with members who lack the necessary expertise or qualifications.
“Every parent wants their child to grow up healthy and protected from preventable diseases,” said Attorney General James. “For decades, these vaccines have kept millions of children out of the hospital and saved countless lives. Families deserve guidance grounded in science, and these abrupt changes put children's health at risk. I will keep fighting to protect our kids and make sure every family can trust the advice they get from their pediatrician.”
Secretary Kennedy is among the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine activists and has significantly contributed to eroding trust in safe and effective vaccines. His views have proven to have zero basis in science and risk making the country less healthy. Among children born in the U.S. between 1994 and 2023, researchers estimate that routine childhood vaccinations prevented about 508 million cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and over 1.1 million deaths, generating $2.7 trillion in societal savings.
In June 2025, despite promising Congress he would leave ACIP alone, Secretary Kennedy fired all 17 of its members and replaced them with his own appointees, many of them vaccine skeptics, without following the required vetting process. Internal HHS emails show that before the new members were even seated, Secretary Kennedy asked that their agenda include weakening the hepatitis B recommendation for healthy children. In December 2025, the new panel voted to end the recommendation that all babies receive a hepatitis B vaccination dose at birth, a recommendation that had been in place since 1991, even as members acknowledged there was no evidence the birth dose causes harm.
Weeks later, the administration bypassed the committee entirely. Three officials with no role in CDC vaccine policy – the heads of the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Food and Drug Administration – sent a memo to then-acting CDC Director Jim O'Neill urging him to implement Secretary Kennedy’s preferred vaccine schedule.
The updated schedule removed vaccines against rotavirus, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, COVID-19, and RSV from the list of vaccinations recommended for every child. Most were moved to a category called “shared clinical decision-making,” which was historically reserved for rare cases where science was genuinely uncertain. For more than 100 million Americans without regular access to a primary care provider, the new vaccine schedule creates yet another barrier to protecting their children. O'Neill, who has no medical or scientific training, signed it the same day without expert review, public notice, or opportunity for comment.
The stakes for children are severe. During the 2024-25 flu season, 289 children died from the flu, the highest number since reporting began outside of the 2009 pandemic. Nearly half had no underlying medical conditions, and 89 percent of those whose vaccination status was known were not fully vaccinated. RSV is the leading cause of hospitalization for infants in the U.S., sending up to 80,000 young children to the hospital each year. Researchers estimate that delaying the first hepatitis B dose by just two months could cause at least 1,400 new childhood infections every year, and could lead to nearly 300 cases of liver cancer and 480 hepatitis B-related deaths over time.
Attorney General James and the coalition argue that the changes force states to spend time and money cleaning up the confusion. For decades, states built school immunization requirements, insurance coverage rules, and Medicaid programs around the federal government’s expert recommendations. New York has already enacted two new laws so that insurance coverage, school immunization requirements, Medicaid coverage, and pharmacists’ authority to vaccinate no longer depend on the federal committee Secretary Kennedy took over.
The states argue that the Secretary’s changes are arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. They are asking the court to declare the new vaccine schedule unlawful, to throw out Secretary Kennedy’s appointments to ACIP, and reverse the committee’s hepatitis B decision.
Joining Attorney General James in this lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania
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