RFK Jr.'s new vaccine panel rules may help sidestep court order, experts say

Health newsRFK Jr.’s new vaccine panel rules may help sidestep court order, experts sayKennedy signed a new charter for the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, adding more focus on vaccine injuries.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington on April 2.Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 10, 2026, 5:19 PM EDTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.New rules approved by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could blunt the impact of a federal judge’s order freezing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee and putting many of its decisions on hold, experts say.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The changes were posted online Thursday in a new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — the document that lays out how the panel is supposed to operate. The CDC is required to review and renew the charter every two years, although it rarely makes significant changes. The charter was posted nearly a month after a Massachusetts federal judge, in a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other medical organizations, halted Kennedy’s remade ACIP and reversed many of the vaccine policy changes the panel had made over the last year — a move that adds further confusion over vaccine policy in the U.S. The judge said the committee’s members, many of whom are critical of vaccines, appeared to be “distinctly unqualified” to serve on the panel. The Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t yet appealed the ruling, but it has 60 days to do so.Kennedy’s new version of the charter, health policy experts say, broadens who can serve on the committee and what it focuses on, including vaccine injuries.“The new ACIP charter postures itself as a sincere attempt to identify vaccine adverse events, but it manipul...