New Jersey joins multistate lawsuit accusing RFK Jr. of undermining childhood vaccine protections

New Jersey has joined a coalition of states suing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., accusing the Trump administration of unlawfully dismantling longstanding federal vaccine policy and putting children’s health at risk.

Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced Tuesday that New Jersey is among 15 states challenging what officials describe as a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s childhood immunization schedule. The lawsuit targets a Jan. 5 decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that removed seven vaccines from the list of universally recommended childhood immunizations, including protections against hepatitis B, meningitis, influenza, COVID-19, rotavirus, hepatitis A and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

The complaint alleges that federal officials bypassed required scientific review and violated federal law by replacing the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory panel with individuals lacking appropriate expertise before altering national guidance relied upon by states, pediatricians, and parents for decades.

“Protecting children is a priority for our office,” Davenport said in a statement. She accused Kennedy and the Trump administration of adopting a “reckless approach to public health policy” that “gambles with children’s health and lives.”

For generations, the federal childhood immunization schedule has served as the backbone of U.S. vaccination policy, shaping school requirements, insurance coverage and public health campaigns. According to research cited in the lawsuit, routine childhood vaccinations prevented an estimated 508 million illnesses, 32 million hospitalizations and more than 1.1 million deaths among children born between 1994 and 2023.

State officials argue that the changes threaten to erode public confidence in vaccines, even as New Jersey says it will continue following established scientific guidance.

“Public trust in vaccines is built on transparency, stability and evidence-based clinical guidance,” Acting Health Commissioner Raynard Washington said. “These reckless vaccine policies not only hurt public trust; they will lead to preventable suffering and death.”

The legal challenge traces the dispute back to June 2025, when Kennedy dismissed all 17 voting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, a panel of independent experts that reviews scientific evidence and recommends vaccine policy to the CDC. The lawsuit claims many replacements lack required qualifications and that several have publicly expressed anti-vaccine views.

In December, the reconstituted panel reversed nearly three decades of CDC policy by eliminating the recommendation that newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth, a measure widely credited with preventing perinatal infection.

Weeks later, the CDC issued the January decision memo downgrading seven additional vaccines. According to the complaint, the change was not supported by new scientific evidence or a lawful advisory recommendation and instead introduced confusion into a system designed to provide consistent national guidance.

Federal officials have argued the revisions increase flexibility and address concerns about vaccine safety, but the suing states contend the move rests on misinformation and undermines decades of scientific consensus.

New Jersey officials said the state’s immunization requirements remain unchanged. Still, they warned that conflicting federal guidance could reduce vaccination rates, potentially increasing outbreaks of preventable diseases while forcing states to spend more on public health outreach and Medicaid costs.

The lawsuit asks a federal court to declare both the revised vaccine schedule and the advisory panel appointments unlawful and to block their implementation.

Joining New Jersey in the case are attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, along with the governor of Pennsylvania.