After Kennedy dropped his own independent presidential bid and threw his support behind Trump two years ago, Trump vowed to reward Kennedy by letting him “go wild” on health, food and medicine.
The health secretary moved at a blistering pace last year to overhaul public health guidance and revamp long-held precedents in vaccine policymaking.
Murphy said in Monday’s order that Kennedy disregarded certain long-held government processes, including reconstituting a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, in a way that likely violated federal law.
“There is a method to how these decisions historically have been made — a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements,” Murphy wrote. “Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions.”
Mark Gorton, president of the Kennedy-aligned MAHA Institute, said the judge was misguided in viewing the HHS bureaucratic process before Kennedy as “some sort of ideal.”
“You’ve had all sorts of ACIP decisions for decades, and you never had a judge standing up and saying that his judgment is superior to that of the panelists, even though the ACIP members for years have been incredibly corrupt and incredibly conflicted,” Gorton said.
Kennedy’s allies say a ‘rogue’ judge could reinvigorate their movement
Dr. Robert Malone, one of Kennedy’s appointees on the vaccine advisory committee, accused Murphy of being a “rogue” judge and called for his impeachment.
He urged the Trump administration to keep pursuing Kennedy’s vaccine policy changes, writing on Substack that the temporary ruling “is a delay, not a defeat.”
