The Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association (“VIP Bar”) is a national, nonpartisan organization of attorneys who represent individuals and families seriously injured by vaccines and who rely on the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (“VICP”) for legal compensation for their pain and suffering, medical expenses, future medical care, and lost wages. The VIP Bar strongly supports safe, effective, and evidence-based vaccination schedules as a cornerstone of public health. At the same time, the VIP Bar unequivocally opposes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent decision to revise the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule by changing routine recommendations for Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, influenza, meningitis, rotavirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and COVID-19 vaccines. This change was not properly vetted by The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (“ACIP”) or supported by newly published safety or efficacy data, nor was it grounded in any emerging scientific consensus, rendering the decision both unjustified and deeply concerning.

The CDC’s role in public health is to promote disease prevention and transmission reduction through clear, consistent, and science-driven vaccine recommendations. Removing or materially altering routine recommendations sends a confusing and destabilizing message to parents, providers, and the public, regardless of whether those vaccines remain technically “available.” Recommendation status matters. It influences uptake, confidence, and trust in the entire immunization framework. Abrupt changes that are untethered from new evidence risk undermining public confidence and trust not only in the affected vaccines, but in the CDC’s immunization guidance as a whole.

The most immediate and severe consequences of this decision will be borne by future vaccine-injured individuals and their families. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, established through bipartisan congressional effort, exists to ensure that those who suffer rare but serious vaccine injuries have access to timely, no-fault compensation while preserving broad immunization coverage. By changing routine recommendations, the CDC jeopardizes access to this essential legal safety net. With further erosion of the recommended immunization schedule, families whose children are injured by these vaccines could find themselves excluded from the VICP altogether, left without meaningful recourse for lifelong medical needs, disability, and pain and suffering.

Contrary to some public narratives, pushing vaccine-injured individuals into civil litigation is not a viable alternative to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Civil courts operate under strict evidentiary and procedural rules that do not apply in Vaccine Court, including heightened liability and causation standards and rigid admissibility requirements that would, in most cases, foreclose recovery altogether. Vaccine injury claims litigated in civil court would also be forced into protracted multidistrict litigation, where cases routinely take 10 years to litigate without any reasonable expectation of compensation to the injured victims.

The experience of recent vaccine-related multidistrict litigations underscores this reality. Litigation involving Zostavax, the shingles vaccine, has been pending for approximately seven years, and litigation involving Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, has been ongoing for roughly five years since the earliest cases were filed, with more than three years spent in centralized multidistrict proceedings. In both litigations, the overwhelming majority of cases have been dismissed on legal and evidentiary grounds, with no global settlement and no meaningful compensation paid to injured claimants. These outcomes demonstrate that while potentially appropriate/necessary in certain circumstances, overall, limiting vaccine injury claims to the slow, unforgiving and expensive forum of civil litigation will mean no relief for the vast majority of vaccine-injured individuals. 

The CDC should be strengthening and expanding evidence-based vaccine recommendations where science supports them, not withdrawing long-standing protections without justification. Public health challenges continue to evolve, and ongoing threats such as influenza, RSV, pneumonia, and meningitis demand rigorous evaluation and clear guidance. Retreating from established recommendations for vaccines long relied upon by families and providers represents a step backward at a time when public health leadership is most needed.

This action also represents an early and troubling step toward undermining the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program itself. The VICP is a foundational component of the nation’s vaccination framework, balancing widespread immunization with fairness to those harmed in service of the public good. Weakening this program will predictably increase vaccine hesitancy, decrease vaccination rates, and heighten the risk of outbreaks of once-preventable diseases. The United States’ public health vaccination policy cannot reach its full potential without a robust federal compensation program—namely, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program—to address the rare but serious adverse events that can result from vaccines.

Equally concerning is the CDC’s reclassification of several vaccines from “recommended” to “shared clinical decision-making,” a change that carries no meaningful clinical benefit but could lead to devastating legal consequences. Shared decision-making has always existed in medical practice. Even under routine CDC recommendations, physicians and patients regularly discuss individual risks, contraindications, and medical history before vaccination. This rebranding does nothing to improve patient care or informed consent, yet may dramatically undermine access to the VICP. HHS has helped no patients with this move and further action may strip future vaccine-injured individuals of access to real compensation.

VIP Bar urges the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services to reconsider this course, to reaffirm their commitment to evidence-based policymaking, and to preserve the integrity of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Public health and justice are not competing values. They are inseparable. The United States’ public health vaccination framework cannot function effectively without a durable, transparent compensation system—namely, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program—that ensures those rare individuals who are injured are cared for while the broader population remains protected.