A coalition of six leading U.S. medical societies and a pregnant hospital physician filed suit on 7 July in federal court in Boston against the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The plaintiffs—led by the American Academy of Pediatrics and including the American College of Physicians, American Public Health Association, Infectious Diseases Society of America, Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Massachusetts Public Health Alliance—allege that Kennedy’s recent Covid-19 vaccine directives are unlawful and pose an “imminent threat” to public health. Kennedy in late May issued a directive removing Covid-19 shots from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended immunization schedules for healthy children and pregnant women, a decision announced on social media without the usual advisory-committee review. Days later he dismissed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and installed seven replacements, several with records of questioning vaccine safety. The complaint, brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, says the moves were arbitrary, capricious and unsupported by scientific evidence. The lawsuit asks the court to vacate Kennedy’s directive, restore the prior vaccine recommendations and bar HHS from enforcing or publicizing the new guidance. Lead counsel Richard Hughes of Epstein Becker Green said the plaintiffs will seek an expedited schedule, aiming for a ruling before autumn. HHS has not yet formally responded, but a department spokesperson has said Kennedy “stands by his CDC reforms.”