type: timeline_event More than a dozen states filed lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's rollback of routine childhood vaccine recommendations by the CDC under RFK Jr.'s influence. The CDC had scaled back decades of evidence-based immunization guidance, contributing to a surge in measles cases that surpassed 900 and threatened the U.S.'s measles elimination status for the first time since 2000.
The state lawsuits argued that the rollback endangered public health and exceeded executive authority, as vaccine schedules are based on scientific evidence reviewed by independent advisory committees rather than political directives. The legal challenges represented a coordinated effort by state attorneys general to preserve the public health infrastructure that had virtually eliminated childhood diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella from the United States over the preceding decades.