The temporary ruling impacts sweeping changes including broadly recommending certain childhood vaccines only for children and babies deemed high risk. The change would have substantially cut the number of vaccines recommended by the federal government. Critics of the proposed vaccine policy have argued it would encourage parents to believe vaccines are optional or less important than others.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not gone through the proper legal channels to make changes, nor had it utilized established scientific methodologies.
"Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions,” he wrote in his ruling.
“The recent ruling by a judge about vaccine schedules in the US was such a relief,” said Dr. Patricia Tibbs, a pediatrician and president of the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“This is what the judge mentioned, you can't just use gut feeling or whatever. We have to have some kind of standards, and currently science is what we have,” she added.
Supporters have argued the CDC’s proposed changes, which included the rotavirus, flu, RSV, some forms of meningitis, and hepatitis A and B vaccines, gave parents and guardian’s agency in making healthcare decisions for their children.
However, others argue that giving vaccines like that for hepatitis B, which was regularly given to all infants within the first several hours after birth regardless of whether a mother was a carrier of the disease, was best practice.
“If you know for a fact that a mother does not have hepatitis B at the time she delivers the baby, then she cannot transmit hepatitis to her child,” Tibbs said. “That is true, but we need to use science even for that one. If we had stuck to the science, if HHS had stuck to the science even for that one, we could have come up with really viable options on that particular vaccine.”
Tibbs said the anxiety surrounding vaccines in general could increase the chance of other diseases getting a foothold in the state.
Mississippi now has a kindergarten vaccination rate as low as 96.3% and as high as 97.6%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's down from about 99% in 2019.
There have been 101 pediatric flu deaths reported in the U.S. this season. Dr. Tibbs worries about how varied the amount of Mississippi children getting vaccinated may be.
“The influenza vaccine has seen such a low uptake this year, at least in my area,” she said.
While several states around the country continue to see measles outbreaks, Mississippi has not had any confirmed cases of the disease in recent years.
“We haven't seen measles yet, but we have to say something about the really high vaccination rate in children in Mississippi before all this started,” Tibbs said. “I think that's what has protected us from a measles epidemic in this state.”
According to a statement from State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney, the state health department has not made “any changes to our vaccination guidance and will continue to work closely with the CDC while making recommendations based on the specific needs of Mississippians.”
HHS plans to appeal the decision.
