The Trump administration on June 17 asked a federal appeals court to reverse a ruling that had blocked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointment of 13 members to a key vaccine advisory panel.
In a brief filed on June 17, government lawyers argued that the ruling prevented the panel from achieving a quorum and that the government could not reconvene it without court approval.
“Should a pathogen emerge tomorrow, the government’s only path to respond would run through the district court,” the government lawyers said.
“Staying thirteen of fifteen appointments does not produce a balanced committee. It produces no functioning committee at all, one without a quorum and unable to meet. The stay does not cure the violation the court identified.”
The ACIP is a federal advisory committee that provides recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of vaccines to control diseases and helps establish immunization schedules for children and adults in the United States.
Murphy ruled in March that the new appointments violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires members of such panels to “maintain a fair balance on its committees and to avoid inappropriate influences by both the appointing authority and any special interest.”
Government lawyers argued in the brief that Murphy lacked the authority to evaluate each of Kennedy’s appointees or invalidate the appointment of those he deemed to have insufficient expertise.
“The secretary decides what expertise ACIP needs, who has it, and how to weigh competing qualifications against the committee’s mission,“ the brief reads. ”A federal judge who substitutes his own assessment of those questions has crossed the line between judicial review and executive staffing.”
“As a result, the committee cannot issue new recommendations, review newly approved vaccines, or complete important work ahead of the fall flu season,” the health secretary said in a social media post.
