The ruling by Judge Brian Murphy, in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, was a preliminary injunction and a temporary legal win for the lead plaintiff, the American Academy of Pediatrics. The medical group sued Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the HHS secretary, to stop a new immunization schedule for children.
That schedule reduced the number of vaccine requirements for children from 17 to 11. The new policy, overseen by the Centers for Disease Control, categorized shots for Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, COVID-19, and three more illnesses, as optional shots for parents to consider.
According to a related Fox News story, Murphy’s ruling Monday came on the same day a federal appeals court overruled his decision that blocked a deportation policy implemented by the Department of Homeland Security.
Murphy had already been admonished by the U.S. Supreme Court after it stayed his injunction in a 7-2 ruling last year, Fox reported.
"How many times can Judge Murphy get reversed in one year?" Deputy Attorney Gen. Todd Blanche, complaining about “lawless decisions,” wrote on X.
Dr. Robert Malone is co-chair of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Mirroring the Fox News story, he told “Washington Watch” the CDC vaccine schedule is the victim of an “activist judge” whose goal is creating “chaos” for the Trump administration.
“He has been admonished by the Supreme Court — that’s a very rare thing — for his actions,” Malone pointed out. “He has had multiple rulings overturned — I think three over the last year.”
ACIP was skeptical of Hepatitis B shot
On the issue of the vaccine schedule, Malone said ACIP studied one vaccine in particular, the Hepatitis B shot, at the request of President Donald Trump himself.
Hepatitis B, which is spread through body fluids such as blood and semen, is typically passed to another person through sex or drug needles.
Since the cause of Hepatitis B is well known, Malone said the advisory committee studied the “logic” behind giving a Hepatitis B vaccine to every newborn infant even when the birth mother is not infected with the virus and tests negative.
“And made a decision that this was inappropriate to strongly recommend and, in many states mandate, birth doses of Hepatitis B vaccine,” he said.
The “birth dose” is a reference to the first injection, given to the newborn within a day after birth, but the vaccine schedule for Hepatitis B includes a second dose and a third dose months later.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends the Hepatitis B vaccine, giving it to every newborn provides a “critical safety net” for infants.
Two major pharmaceutical companies, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, were providing those “birth dose” Hepatitis B vaccines for approximately 3 million newborns annually before the Trump administration changed the vaccine schedule.
Dropping the Hepatitis B shot for every newborn in the United States is not a “radical” change nor an “anti-vaxxer position,” Malone insisted.
“The president explicitly wanted to see a review and decisions,” Malone explained, “that would bring the American vaccine schedule, which is the most aggressive in the world, bar none, in alignment with peer Western countries.”
