The COVID-19 vaccination is safe and effective for pregnant people and should remain an option for them, APHA says.
Photo by FG Trade Latin, courtesy iStockphoto
Recent changes to federal COVID-19 vaccine guidance put Americans “at grave and immediate risk” of harm and must be overturned, APHA and partners say in a new lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The legal complaint, filed July 7 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, challenges a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to downgrade advice on COVID-19 vaccinations. Defendants in the lawsuit include HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said in May that COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be included in federal recommended immunization schedules for healthy children and people who are pregnant.
Following his announcement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention edited guidance on COVID-19 vaccinations on its website. As of July, the agency’s immunization schedule said that children ages 6 months to 17 years who are not immunocompromised “may receive” a COVID-19 vaccination based on shared decisionmaking between clinicians and parents or guardians.
Minimizing the need for COVID-19 vaccinations puts Americans, especially children, at “immediate risk of contracting a preventable disease,” APHA and the other plaintiffs said.
Kennedy — who has a long history of promoting vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories — also dismissed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in June, replacing them with his personal choices, some of whom have expressed anti-vaccine views.
The secretary’s actions are intended to mislead the public and normalize anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric, while also violating established federal procedures, according to the lawsuit. Other plaintiffs in the case include the American Academy of Pediatrics, Infectious Disease Society of America and the Massachusetts Public Health Association.
Vaccination during pregnancy is safe and reduces the risk of severe illness and death from infectious disease in infants. A COVID-19 infection during pregnancy can increase risks for preeclampsia, preterm birth and stillbirth.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of actions by APHA to defend public health against harmful policies from the Trump administration. In June, a federal judge sided with APHA and its partners in a case that overturned the administration's cancellation of hundreds of NIH research grants. The Association also obtained a restraining order this spring against the administration's reorganization of the federal government, though an emergency stay issued by the Supreme Court on July 8 is allowing staffing cuts and agency restructuring to continue as the case proceeds.
For more information, visit www.apha.org/under-threat.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
