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A Biden-appointed judge, previously admonished by the Supreme Court, imposed an injunction against the Trump administration’s move to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for children.
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U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in the District of Massachusetts issued the ruling on Monday.
Last May, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the removal of the COVID-19 vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-recommended immunization schedule for children and pregnant women.
Kennedy fired 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, in June and replaced them with 13 new advisers.
The American Academy of Pediatrics sued in July, claiming the directive adversely affects the physician-patient relationship since doctors could be put in a position to advise against federal health guidelines. The group also asserted that the rule change violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
The advisory board firings likely violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Murphy found. The judge further determined all the decisions made by the advisory board–including about other vaccines–were voided.
Murphy imposed the preliminary injunction and stayed any actions taken by the advisory committee’s new members.
The administration is likely to appeal the decision.
“HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement, according to The Guardian.
In an immigration case, Murphy revoked the Trump administration’s policy of deporting illegal immigrants to locations other than their country of origin. The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Murphy’s ruling in that case.
In the vaccine case, the committee ruled in January to remove the COVID-19 vaccine and other suggested vaccines from the immunization schedule, a ruling that was voided by the judge.
Murphy found that the administration bypassed the immunization advisory committee “to change the immunization schedules, which is both a technical, procedural failure itself and a strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee.”
“Second, the government removed all duly appointed members of ACIP and summarily replaced them without undertaking any of the rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of ACIP member selection for decades,” he added.
Murphy wrote, “the court concludes that plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the reconstitution of ACIP and the January 2026 changes to the childhood immunization schedule violate the Administrative Procedure Act.”
Advisory Committee co-chair Robert Malone called for Murphy’s impeachment in a post on X.
“Brian Murphy is a rogue judge, who has been rebuked by the Supreme Court for continuing to enforce an injunction after the Supreme Court had already stayed it in an immigration deportation case. In that case, the Supreme Court held that district court judges do not have authority to issue nationwide injunctions. He then again defied the same order in 2026,” Malone posted.
Brian Murphy is a rogue judge, who has been rebuked by the Supreme Court for continuing to enforce an injunction after the Supreme Court had already stayed it in an immigration deportation case. In that case, the Supreme Court held that district court judges do not have…
— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) March 17, 2026
He added, “This is the third time in six months, he has defied the Supreme court – insisting that he can issue national wide injunctions against the federal government. There is no other remedy to remove him from the bench, other than impeachment.”
Malone was referring to the deportation case. Last summer, the Supreme Court temporarily cleared the way for “third country” deportations before Murphy again imposed an injunction on the administration’s deportation policy. The high court told Murphy he could not enforce an order it had stayed.
American Academy of Pediatrics President Andrew D. Racine applauded Murphy’s ruling.
“This decision effectively means that a science-based process for developing immunization recommendations is not to be trifled with and represents a critical step to restoring scientific decision-making to federal vaccine policy that has kept children healthy for years,” Racine said in a public statement.
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This article was originally published at The Daily Signal. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore – https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/54818036240/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=175763763.
