Medical groups sue RFK Jr. over new COVID-19 vaccine recommendations

Six major medical groups, along with a pregnant physician, have sued HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over recent changes to COVID-19 vaccine guidance. In May, Kennedy announced that CDC would no longer recommend routine COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant people.

The organizations involved in the lawsuit are the American Public Health Association, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, and the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance. A pregnant physician who was unable to get a COVID-19 vaccination due to the policy change also joined the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that Kennedy acted "arbitrarily and capriciously when he unilaterally changed COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant people." The plaintiffs also criticized several of Kennedy's actions regarding vaccines, including completely replacing CDC's vaccine advisory panel, as being a "coordinated set of actions … designed to mislead, confuse, and gradually desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric."

The plaintiffs have asked the court to restore CDC's previous recommendations to vaccinate healthy children and pregnant people against COVID-19, as well as have Kennedy post the restored schedule on X.

"These decisions are founded in fear and not evidence, and will make our children and communities more vulnerable to infectious diseases like measles, whooping cough, and influenza," said AAP president Susan Kressly. "Our immunization system has long been a cornerstone of U.S. public health, but actions by the current administration are jeopardizing its success."

(Cirruzzo, STAT, 7/7; Fiore, MedPage Today, 7/7)

Rural hospitals to be hit hard by Medicaid funding cuts

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a budget bill that includes almost $1 trillion in healthcare cuts and was signed into law on Friday, is expected to have a significant impact on rural hospitals, potentially leading to closures and worsening access to care.

According to an analysis by the Cecil G. Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, over 300 hospitals could be at risk of closure due to the new law.

Although the law includes a rural health fund, which will provide rural hospitals and community health centers with $50 billion over five years, many rural hospital advocates say that this funding may not be enough to cover the shortfall from other cuts.

According to a KFF report, 36 states are expected to lose $1 billion or more in Medicaid funding for rural areas over the next 10 years under the new law, even with the $50 billion rural hospital fund. Kentucky is expected to lose the most funding ($12.3 billion), followed by North Carolina ($7.49 billion) and Virginia ($6.82 billion).

"We see rural hospitals throughout the country really operating on either negative or very small operating margins," said Carrie Cochran-McClain, chief policy officer at the National Rural Health Association. "Meaning that any amount of cut to a payer — especially a payer like Medicaid that makes up a significant portion of rural provider funding — is going to be consequential to the rural hospitals' ability to provide certain services or maybe even keep their doors open at the end of the day." 

(Associated Press/MedPage Today, 7/7, Saunders, et al., KFF, 7/2)

Later that day, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary injunction that prevents the Trump administration from revoking Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. The temporary injunction lasts 14 days and directs HHS to "take all steps necessary to ensure that Medicaid funding continues to be disbursed" to Planned Parenthood.

In response to the ruling, a White House official said that the "Trump Administration is ending the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion – a commonsense position that the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with."

(Owermohle/Iyer, CNN, 7/7; Walsh, CBS News, 7/7)

Judge rules mass HHS layoffs were likely unlawful

In May, 20 Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit against HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, HHS, CDC, and FDA over mass layoffs throughout the agencies. In a major restructuring plan announced earlier this year, HHS planned to reduce its workforce by around 10,000 full-time employees.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose ruled that mass layoffs at HHS were likely unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to halt its plans to restructure the agency's workforce. In her ruling, she wrote that the attorneys general had shown "irreparable harm" from the layoffs and would likely prevail in their claims that "HHS's action was both arbitrary and capricious as well as contrary to law."

"The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress," DuBose wrote.

DuBose's ruling applies to workers who were terminated at CDC, FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, the Office of Head Start inside the Administration for Children and Families and regional offices that handled Head Start matters, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

Under DuBose's order, the Trump administration is blocked from finalizing layoffs announced in March or issuing any further layoffs. HHS has also been directed to file a status report by July 11.

Since late March, over 10,000 HHS employees have been laid off, though certain agencies, including CDC, have repeatedly rescinded layoffs for hundreds of employees. According to Kennedy, 20% of people originally laid off may be reinstated due to mistakes.

(Associated Press/ABC News, 7/1)

NIH to make all research publicly available

Last week, NIH announced that all research funded by the agency, either partially or fully, and published in scientific journals, will be made publicly available as soon as it is published. All final, peer-reviewed research articles that were accepted for publication on or after July 1 are included in this new policy.

In 2008, NIH issued a Public Access Policy that allowed publications up to 12 months before they had to make their NIH-funded studies publicly available. In 2024, NIH revised the regulation to remove the 12-month embargo period, with an original target implementation date of December 31, 2025.

Recently, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya announced that the agency had moved up the implementation date to July 1, 2025.

"The American people should have immediate free access to the science that we so generously fund through the NIH," Bhattacharya wrote in a post on X. "Starting today, we do."

According to Chemistry World, responses to the new policy have been mixed, with organizations saying they support the change but that moving up the implementation date will create new burdens for researchers and publishers.

"Ensuring the United States remains a leader in the sciences is a top priority for the AAP member journals who employ tens of thousands of Americans in support of their mission to curate and publish world-class research," said Carl Maxwell, SVP of public policy at the Association of American Publishers (AAP). "While expediting the deadline for NIH open access mandates will likely create disruptions for both researchers and journals as they move to adapt, we look forward to continued discussions about the most effective means of growing our nation's scientific leadership, while at the same time protecting the integrity of the critically important peer-review process." (Reed, Axios, 7/3; Trager, Chemistry World, 5/7; NIH statement, 4/30)