Doctors sue CDC over childhood vax schedule, demanding proof it does more good than harm

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. indicated during a congressional hearing in June that kids "get 69 to 92 jabs" by the time they are 18 years old. Now, two doctors are working to change the burden of proof from on the patients who are subjected to them, to on the government agencies that effectively demand them.

Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, told Blaze News that the "vaccines have never been properly tested, either individually, in groupings, or as the full schedule, so no one can honestly say that they are not linked to the chronic disease epidemic."

Two doctors backed by the advocacy group Stand for Health Freedom have filed a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention challenging the agency's recommended childhood immunization schedule.

Dr. Paul Thomas and Dr. Kenneth Stoller, both of whom had their medical licenses suspended and revoked in recent years for standing up against the vaccination regime, want to flip the burden of proof on the matter.

Their complaint, filed on Aug. 15 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, notes that "America administers more vaccines than any nation on earth while producing the sickest children in the developed world. Yet CDC demands proof of harm while refusing to conduct the studies that could provide it."

"They who recommend dozens of medical interventions for millions of children must first prove that these interventions taken together result in more good than harm," the complaint says.

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In their lawsuit, the doctors accuse the CDC of violating:

• the Administrative Procedure Act by issuing de facto "binding national mandates" without required rulemaking and "by failing to consider the important aspect of cumulative vaccine safety";
• the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause "by compelling medical interventions without scientific basis while punishing those who seek evidence of safety";
• the Fifth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by allegedly denying the medical vulnerability of certain children, treating all children as medically identical, and treating "each vaccine as if administered in a biological vacuum, ignoring cross-reactivity and cumulative burden on vulnerable immune systems"; and
• the First Amendment by suppressing, through its contraindication framework, "medical and scientific dissent through coordinated professional retaliation."

In addition to requesting that the court affirm these accusations, the doctors seek an injunction against the CDC from maintaining any Category A recommendations for childhood vaccines.

The Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices is the federal panel that makes the vaccine recommendations that become official policy at the CDC and apply to the entire American population once adopted by the agency's director.

The panel, which was purged in June by Kennedy of all of its Biden administration appointees, organizes its vaccine recommendations into two categories: A and B.

Category A recommendations are made for all persons in an age- or a risk-factor-based group. Category B recommendations are made for individual clinical decision-making.

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Thomas and Stoller figure that until the CDC can demonstrate through "scientifically rigorous" studies that the cumulative schedule is safe, all the vaccines should be shifted into the second category.

While the ACIP's recommendations are technically advisory, they are effectively enforced as mandatory standards in most jurisdictions in the country.

'High vaccination rates don't require coercion.'

"Medical boards revoke licenses for deviation. Schools exclude children. Insurance coverage depends on compliance," the lawsuit says.

Lyons told Blaze News, "It's a mandate when children in every state can't go to school without following the schedule. It's disingenuous to claim that it's just a recommended schedule. Everyone knows that isn't true."

Reclassifying the vaccine recommendations as Category B could serve to neutralize such mandates.

Richard Jaffe, attorney for the plaintiffs, indicated that this lawsuit differs from other challenges to the CDC's vaccination schedule because rather than focus on state mandates or exemptions, it is taking the agency to task on administrative and constitutional grounds.

"We're not asking to ban vaccines," Jaffe wrote. "High vaccination rates don't require coercion. Parents make responsible choices when given honest information and medical freedom."

When pressed for comment, a representative for the CDC told Blaze News that the agency "does not discuss pending litigations."

Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy researcher at the University of California Law, San Francisco, told Politico, "This lawsuit does not raise valid legal claims, is by plaintiffs who do not have direct injury from the schedule as a whole — the doctors lost their license for other things — and its factual basis is untrue."

"It seems more performative than anything else," added Reiss, who previously complained about the HHS scrapping its recommendation that pregnant women and kids get the COVID-19 vaccines.