{"id":895135,"date":"2026-03-28T06:28:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T11:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/28\/influential-vaccine-advisory-panel-acip-may-be-disbanded-after-lawsuit-says-former-vice-chair\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T06:28:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T11:28:30","slug":"influential-vaccine-advisory-panel-acip-may-be-disbanded-after-lawsuit-says-former-vice-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/28\/influential-vaccine-advisory-panel-acip-may-be-disbanded-after-lawsuit-says-former-vice-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Influential vaccine advisory panel ACIP may be \u2018disbanded\u2019 after lawsuit, says former vice chair"},"content":{"rendered":"
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March 19, 2026<\/p>\n

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For years, ACIP has advised U.S. vaccine policy. But after changes to its membership made by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., were challenged in court, the Trump administration is apparently mulling changing tack<\/p>\n

By Claire Cameron<\/a> edited by Jeanna Bryner<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Trump administration is considering disbanding an influential and independent vaccine advisory panel, according to its former vice chair, Robert Malone. For more than half a century, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has informed U.S. public health policy, helping to set the country\u2019s recommended routine childhood and adult vaccine schedules.<\/p>\n

In a social media post<\/a> on Thursday, Malone said that the Trump administration had made the decision to disband and \u201crecreate a new ACIP committee.\u201d Malone said the move was a response to a lawsuit<\/a> filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and five other medical groups that contested the appointments of ACIP members made in the past year by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.<\/p>\n

He later clarified<\/a> that \u201cthe decision about how to proceed has not been made, and dissolving and reforming remains one of options being considered.\u201d HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement that \u201cunless officially announced by us, any assertions about what we are doing next is baseless speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A federal judge on Monday ruled that Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, had likely appointed 13 ACIP panelists in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which holds that such advisory groups should be \u201cfair and balanced.\u201d The ruling blocked their appointments, effectively stalling ACIP\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny new iteration of the committee must conform to the laws at issue in our case, including FACA,\u201d says Richard Hughes, a lead counsel for the AAP in its case against Kennedy. \u201cAnything short of a qualified committee selected through the proper process will meet our challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporting by CNN<\/a> suggests other members of ACIP, including chair Kirk Milhoan, had also been told that the committee would be disbanded. In his earlier post, Malone suggested that HHS may intend \u201cto disband and then recreate a new ACIP committee, as this will take less time than would be required to file and prosecute an appeal.\u201d Its future remains unclear.<\/p>\n

It is also unclear if the Trump administration plans to appeal any part of the judge\u2019s decision, which also temporarily blocked sweeping changes to the country\u2019s vaccine recommendations<\/a> made under Kennedy. At the time of the ruling, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told Scientific American <\/i>that the department looked forward to the decision being overturned. Robert Malone did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note (3\/20\/26): This story has been updated to include comment from a representative of the Department of Health and Human Services and Robert Malone\u2019s later clarification about the status of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, as well as additional reporting from CNN. This is a breaking news story and may be updated further.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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March 19, 2026 2 min read Add Us On Google Add SciAm For years, ACIP has advised U.S. vaccine policy. But after changes to its membership made by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., were challenged in court, the Trump administration is apparently mulling changing tack By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner Photo by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":895136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24829,22346],"tags":[9269,12453],"class_list":{"0":"post-895135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-influential","8":"category-vaccine","9":"tag-influential","10":"tag-vaccine"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}