This timeline is intended to highlight select HHS actions related to vaccines and does not include all public health–related federal activity.
Date | Action by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) |
| March 7, 2025 | HHS announces a study to assess the repeatedly debunked claim that vaccines are linked to autism (Baumgaertner Nunn & Gay Stolberg, 2025). |
| March 12, 2025 | In an email circulated at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), more than 40 grants related to vaccine hesitancy canceled (Stein & Stone, 2025). |
| May 10, 2025 | NIH’s Vaccine Research Center stalls core operations (Washington Post, 2025). |
| May 20, 2025 | The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announces COVID-19 vaccines are recommended only for people over age 65, or 12- to 64-year-olds with a qualifying medical condition, requiring randomized, controlled trials for all healthy persons (Prasad & Makary, 2025). |
| May 22, 2025 | Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) publishes a report which questions the expansion of the childhood immunization schedule, the adequacy of clinical trials, the effectiveness of safety monitoring, the integrity of the Vaccine Injury Compensation program, and the role of vaccine mandates. |
| May 27, 2025 | HHS pulls recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women in a 58-second video on social media (Kennedy, 2025). |
| May 30, 2025 | NIH cancels major HIV vaccine development projects (Cohen, 2025). |
| June 11, 2025 | Following the removal of all 17 existing members of the Advisory Council of Immunization Practices (ACIP), Sec. Kennedy announces on X eight new members of ACIP, several of whom have ties to anti-vaccine research or organizations (Kennedy, 2025). |
| June 25 and 26, 2025 | ACIP meets and votes to recommend routine influenza vaccination for everyone older than 6 months. ACIP also voted to no longer recommend thimerosal-containing vaccines without any scientific presentation from CDC staff and after an unvetted presentation by former Children Health's Defense President, Lyn Redwood. A CDC analysis of the data on thimerosal, which concluded that thimerosal in vaccines did not pose a health risk, was taken off the CDC website before the meeting (CIDRAP, 2025). |
| September 18 and 19, 2025 | ACIP votes not to recommend the MMRV vaccine for children under 4 and to adopt shared clinical decision making recommendations for COVID vaccines for people under 65 (Garder, 2025). |
| November 20, 2025 | CDC changes its website on vaccines and autism to suggest that there may be a link (Stein, 2025). |
| December 4 and 5, 2025 | ACIP votes to change routine recommendations for the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine (CNN, 2025). |
| December 30, 2025 | State health officials receive a letter from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) informing them that they will no longer be required to report vaccination rates in Children's Health Insurance Plan enrollees (CIDRAP, 2025). |
| January 5, 2026 | Federal officials announce an unprecedented overhaul of the US childhood immunization schedule, paring the number of universally recommended immunizations from 17 to 11 (HHS, 2026). |
| February 10, 2026 | Moderna announced that the FDA initially refused to review its license application for an investigational mRNA-based influenza vaccine due to concerns about the study’s comparison arm, a decision the company says was inconsistent with feedback the agency had provided during prior consultations. The FDA later reversed the decision and agreed to proceed with the review after further discussions. |
| March 16, 2026 | A federal judge blocked HHS' recent overhaul of the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule after a lawsuit by the American Academy of Pediatrics argued the changes likely violated federal law. The judge also paused the Secretary Kennedy’s appointments to ACIP, suspending its vaccine policy actions and stopping the committee's scheduled March meeting (New York Times, 2026). |
| May 27, 2026 | America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) confirmed that member health plans will continue to cover all ACIP recommended immunizations—including updated COVID-19 and influenza vaccines—with zero cost-sharing for patients through the end of 2027 (AHIP, 2026). |
| May 29, 2026 | President Trump issued an Executive Order directing the CDC and ACIP to realign the US childhood vaccine schedule, reducing the number of recommended vaccinations based on comparisons with "peer nations" such as Denmark. ACIP is still barred from meeting per a federal judge ruling in March 2026. |
| June 23, 2026 | The June 25, 2026 ACIP meeting is cancelled, citing "ongoing litigation" (CDC, 2026). |
| June 25, 2026 | A new ACIP charter is posted on the CDC website. This version downplays the panel's role in recommending the use of new vaccines and says part of ACIP's responsibility is to assess alternatives for disease prevention (STAT, 2026). |
Updated 6/26/26