Trump administration seeks to restore vaccine advisory panel quorum, appeal says

The Trump administration is pressing a federal appeals court to restore a quorum on the nation’s main vaccine advisory panel, warning that the committee cannot recommend flu shots or respond quickly to a new pathogen while most of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointees remain sidelined. At stake is not just one panel’s paperwork, but who ultimately controls vaccine policy in practice: judges, longstanding agency rules, or a politically appointed health secretary.

Late Wednesday, the Justice Department asked the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston to reverse part of a March 16 ruling by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston. Murphy said the appointment process for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had been tainted and barred 13 of the panel’s 15 members from continuing to serve. The administration is not challenging the judge’s separate orders blocking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s January 5 move to cut routinely recommended childhood vaccinations, or setting aside ACIP votes on hepatitis B for newborns and COVID-19 recommendations.

That narrow appeal underscores how much authority ACIP still carries. For more than 60 years before 2025, the committee reviewed evidence, voted on vaccine recommendations and sent them to the CDC director for review. If adopted, those recommendations became official CDC and Health and Human Services guidance. ACIP typically votes each year, often in the fall, to update the next year’s immunization schedules, and many federal and state laws refer to those recommendations. The CDC says the panel has up to 19 voting members, plus six ex officio members and 30 liaison representatives.

The committee’s charter gives the dispute even more practical weight. If fewer than a quorum are eligible to vote, the designated federal officer can temporarily designate ex officio members as voting members, a mechanism that could determine whether the panel can meet at all. The administration argues the current court order leaves the public health system unable to respond fast enough if a new threat emerges, and that the panel needs to be functioning now, not months from now.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups filed the lawsuit in July 2025, arguing that Kennedy’s overhaul of the committee and the childhood schedule violated federal law. After the March ruling, AAP President Andrew D. Racine called it a critical step toward restoring scientific decision-making. The AAP says its 2026 immunization schedule recommends routine vaccination against 18 diseases, has been endorsed by more than 12 national medical societies representing more than 1 million clinicians, and is backed by a coalition of more than 230 medical, public health, parent and labor groups. If the appeals court restores the quorum, Kennedy’s handpicked panelists could begin reshaping vaccine policy. If it does not, the legal fight will keep limiting how far the administration can go in remaking federal vaccine advisory structures.