IMA Strongly Backs Secretary Kennedy's Motion to Expedite ACIP Appeal
“A coalition of industry-funded organizations went judge-shopping and found a willing partner to shut down the first ACIP in decades that dared to ask hard questions about vaccine safety, efficacy, and the conflicts of interest that have plagued this process for years. Reasonable people can disagree about vaccine policy, but no one benefits from a system that cannot function. Scientific questions should be debated through the established advisory process, not resolved by rendering that process inoperable.” – Dr. Joseph Varon
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) The Independent Medical Alliance (IMA), a national coalition of more than 12,000 independent physicians, researchers, and clinicians, and a named liaison advisor to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), today expressed its full support for Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s (
@SecKennedy) motion asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to expedite its appeal of a March 16 district court order that has effectively paralyzed the nation's federal vaccine advisory system.
The motion, filed June 12, comes after the administration's April 29 appeal of U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's ruling, which stayed Kennedy's ACIP member appointments and left the committee unable to function.
"A federal judge has done what no health agency, no administration, and no act of Congress ever intended: he has taken the nation's vaccine advisory system entirely offline," said Dr. Joseph Varon (
@joevaron), IMA President and Chief Medical Officer. "A single district court has substituted itself for the independent scientific process that families, physicians, insurers, and public health programs have relied on for decades. This judge has stretched his authority beyond recognition, and he’s endangering public health."
The March 16 order stayed Kennedy's new member appointments to ACIP and froze the committee's actions, leaving it without a quorum and unable to carry out its core mission. As Kennedy noted in filing the expedited motion, the committee currently cannot issue new vaccine recommendations, review newly approved vaccines, or complete its standard pre-season guidance ahead of the fall respiratory virus season. The paralysis also blocks implementation of a Trump executive order directing an updated review of the childhood vaccination schedule.
"The IMA was named to ACIP's liaison roster precisely to bring the perspective of frontline, practicing physicians to this process,” continued Dr. Varon. “We cannot fulfill that role while the committee sits frozen. We urge the First Circuit to expedite this review and restore ACIP's ability to function."