A nonprofit formerly led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accusing the agency—now under Kennedy’s oversight—of pressuring doctors to administer COVID-19 vaccines to disadvantaged children through a federal program.
The suit seeks to force the CDC to abandon a “scientifically untethered” vaccination policy. It specifically challenges the Vaccine for Children (VFC) program, which offers free vaccines to Medicaid-eligible children and began including COVID-19 shots during the pandemic.
The lawsuit’s lead plaintiff is Dr. Samara Cardenas, a pediatrician from Anaheim who says her refusal to give COVID-19 shots based on medical judgment cost her nearly 2,000 Medicaid patients and ultimately forced the closure of her practice. According to the complaint, filed April 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the CDC’s actions “punish ethical physicians” and promote an “unnecessary mass vaccination” campaign targeting the nation’s poorest children.
Dr. Cardenas claims the CDC is compelling doctors to offer what she describes as “an investigational COVID-19 vaccine, which has never been shown to confer any clinical benefit to healthy children,” despite the pandemic’s end and what she argues is minimal risk to children. When she stopped ordering COVID-19 vaccines, the VFC program allegedly blocked all her vaccine orders, effectively cutting her off from treating Medicaid patients. That led CalOptima, the local Medicaid provider, to terminate her contract and reassign her 1,900 patients, the lawsuit says.
Her attorney, Richard Jaffe, criticized federal policy as overly rigid and damaging to public trust. “This is what happens when you leave public health policy to people with too narrow a focus,” he said.
Since taking over the Department of Health and Human Services in February, Kennedy has slashed $2 billion from the agency’s Immunization and Vaccines for Children grants as part of broader cuts to COVID-related funding.
Read the lawsuit.
