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This week’s newsletter focuses on recent challenges to vaccine policy in the US.
In an important case challenging some of the actions undertaken by Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threatening the nation’s vaccine infrastructure, the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other medical and public health groups filed a lawsuit this week in Federal District Court in Massachusetts against Kennedy and several other officials in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Plaintiffs in American Academy of Pediatrics et al v. Kennedy et al (Docket No. 1:25-cv-11916) allege that Kennedy acted arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by releasing a “Secretarial Directive” on May 27, removing the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant individuals. This Directive was followed by Kennedy’s decision on June 9, 2025 to replace all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). According to the Plaintiffs, Kennedy acted arbitrarily and capriciously by issuing the Directive without providing an explanation or consulting with ACIP, among other alleged violations of law. Plaintiffs further argue that the Directive has eroded the public’s trust in vaccines and has made it difficult for pregnant individuals and children to access vaccines and will “result in preventable deaths, including unborn and newborns under 6 months old.” Of note, this case was assigned to Judge William Young—the same district court judge hearing both American Public Health Association et al v. National Institutes of Health et al and Massachusetts v. Kennedy, which we reviewed in our previous newsletter.
While medical and public health groups are litigating actions by Kennedy that impede access to vaccines, others are challenging the lack of religious exemptions in some states’ school vaccination laws. In a recently filed lawsuit in West Virginia’s Raleigh County Circuit Court, Miranda Guzman, a mother of school-age child A.G., sued the West Virginia Board of Education for not offering religious exemptions to the state’s school vaccine mandate. Previously, the state only allowed medical exemptions, however, West Virginia’s Governor Patrick Morrissey issued an Executive Order last January to allow for religious exemptions. He explained that vaccine mandates substantially burden the free exercise of religion in violation of the West Virginia Equal Protection for Religion Act of 2023.
In her complaint, Guzman Plaintiff claims that her child was provided a religious exemption certificate from the state health department after the January Executive Order. However, the certificate was rescinded in June. She argues that the recission and subsequent requirement that her child be vaccinated violates the Equal Protection for Religion Act. Notably, Governor Morrisey has voiced his support for Guzman and his continued support of religious exemptions from vaccine requirements.
In another case challenging West Virginia’s mandate, West Virginia Parents for Religious Freedom et al v. Christiansen (Docket No. 5:23-cv-00158), the Plaintiffs’ complaint was dismissed without prejudice on June 23, 2025 after the Plaintiffs received religious exemptions from vaccines for their children.
Litigation challenging state vaccine mandates is also ongoing in several other states. In Grimsby v. Pan et al (Docket No. 5:25-cv-01575), which was filed on June 24, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, a mother alleges that her child was barred from attending two private religious schools for not receiving two vaccines that were required by California law. The mother argues that the state’s refusal to permit religious exemptions even though it offers some secular exemptions, including medical exemptions, exemptions for children with “Individualized Educational Plans,” and exemptions when a child is not receiving classroom instruction, violates the First Amendment’s right to freely exercise religion and cannot survive strict scrutiny. Likewise, in Doe v. Oceanside Union Free School District (Docket No. 2:25-cv-02304), which was filed on April 25, 2025 in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the Plaintiff argues that the state’s failure to offer a religious or medical exemption from its vaccine mandate to a child with disabilities violates the First Amendment’s right to free exercise of religion, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the substantive Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, in addition to several state laws. Similar arguments have been made by the Plaintiffs in a May 22, 2025 case brought against the Ventura Unified School District in California, We The Patriots USA, Inc. et al v. Ventura Unified School District et al (Docket No. 2:25-cv-04659). All of these cases challenging state vaccine laws are still pending.
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