By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, March 16 (Reuters) – A federal judge in Boston who blocked major parts of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sweeping moves to upend U.S. immunization policies has already drawn the ire of President Donald Trump’s administration for numerous rulings impeding his policies in other cases.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy on Monday sided with medical groups who argued that Kennedy and the agencies he oversees unlawfully reshaped federal policies in ways that will increase barriers to getting vaccinated, fuel distrust in shots and lower immunization rates.
The judge rejected a move by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce the number of shots routinely recommended for children and ruled against Kennedy’s disbanding and reconstituting of a key vaccine advisory committee, prompting it to postpone a meeting set to begin Wednesday.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines contrary to scientific evidence, was appointed by the Republican president last year as the U.S. government’s top health official. Kennedy’s critics have said his actions on vaccines and other areas will undermine public health.
APPOINTED BY BIDEN
Murphy was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, confirmed by the U.S. Senate and joined the federal bench in Massachusetts in December 2024, the month before Trump returned to the presidency.
Murphy has earned the scorn of the Trump administration after issuing a series of rulings that blocked core parts of his hardline immigration agenda, prevented it from gutting funding for federal research and halted its efforts to prevent the further development of offshore wind energy.
The judge is a former public defender who previously ran a small criminal defense law firm based in Worcester, Massachusetts. He told lawyers at an event in February that he “had not anticipated some of the more nationwide cases that have been a part of the practice, here in Massachusetts especially.”
Cases with national significance have been piling up on the dockets of Massachusetts-based judges like Murphy, as Trump opponents strategically funnel litigation into the federal court in Boston now dominated by the judicial appointees of Democratic presidents.
VACCINE PANEL OVERHAUL
The case before Murphy was brought by public health groups, led by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that sought to block the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from implementing a revised childhood immunization schedule and to prevent a vaccine advisory panel assembled by Kennedy from holding its planned March 18-19 meeting.
The groups argued that the CDC acted unlawfully when it cut the number of routinely recommended childhood vaccinations to 11 and downgraded recommendations for six diseases, including influenza and hepatitis A.
They also challenged Kennedy’s decision to dismiss and replace all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, saying the move produced a panel dominated by vaccine skeptics in violation of federal law governing advisory bodies.
The reconstituted panel has since voted to roll back broad federal recommendations for COVID‑19 and hepatitis B vaccines.
Justice Department lawyers said the plaintiffs were seeking improper court oversight of federal health policy and argued that statutory requirements for panel “balance” concerned the backgrounds of members, not their views.
‘OUT OF CONTROL’
Another major Trump-related case Murphy has handled involved a lawsuit by immigrant rights advocates seeking to prevent the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from rapidly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without letting them raise any concerns about potential persecution or torture.
Murphy issued and enforced a court order to restrict the administration’s efforts to deport migrants of other nationalities to countries such as South Sudan, Libya and El Salvador.
Trump derided Murphy as “out of control,” and White House adviser Stephen Miller called the judge a “lunatic.” At the administration’s urging, the Supreme Court intervened twice in early stages of the case, lifting Murphy’s injunction and clearing the way for the deportation of several men to South Sudan.
Murphy ruled against the “third country” deportation policy again on February 25 in a final ruling. On Monday, a federal appeals court paused that order while the government pursues its appeal. The administration has said it is prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court again.
The judge has dealt the Trump administration other courtroom setbacks, such as in October, when he ruled that the Pentagon’s steep cuts to federal research funding for universities were unlawful.
In January, the judge allowed the Vineyard Wind joint venture to resume its Massachusetts offshore wind project, one of five judicial rulings nationwide that blocked the administration from halting wind projects on national security grounds.
Days later, Murphy issued an order temporarily blocking the administration from ending temporary deportation protections covering more than 5,000 Ethiopians living in the United States.
“I’m sure when you imagined your first months on the bench, you expected a quiet start, where you’d learn the ropes,” Democratic U.S. Senator Ed Markey said in video remarks played at Murphy’s formal swearing-in ceremony in September. “But as the saying goes, sometimes the judiciary has plans for you.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Will Dunham)
