• What Happened: Fifteen Democrat-led states sued the Trump administration over the CDC's decision to remove universal recommendations for seven childhood vaccines.
  • Why It Matters: RFK Jr. replaced the CDC's entire vaccine advisory committee and realigned the U.S. childhood schedule with international standards used by peer nations.
  • Bottom Line: Trump and RFK Jr. say the changes strengthen parental rights and informed consent. Democrats say it threatens public health.

Fifteen Democrat governors and attorneys general just sued the Trump administration for doing something radical: letting parents have more say in their children's health decisions.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced Tuesday he is joining a multistate lawsuit challenging the CDC's January decision to remove universal recommendations for seven childhood vaccines, including flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease, COVID-19, and RSV. Under the new guidance, those vaccines move from one-size-fits-all mandates to individualized recommendations made between parents and their doctors based on each child's specific risk profile.

That is not an attack on science. That is how medicine is supposed to work.

RFK Jr. explained the reasoning plainly. "President Trump directed us to examine how other developed nations protect their children and to take action if they are doing better. After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent. This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health."

He is right. The United States has long had one of the most aggressive childhood vaccine schedules in the developed world. Other peer nations use more targeted approaches based on individual risk factors rather than blanket universal mandates. The Trump administration looked at the evidence, looked at what other countries are doing, and made a rational adjustment.

Democrats, of course, are not interested in nuance. The lawsuit led by Arizona and California argues that RFK Jr.'s decision to replace all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was unlawful. What they leave out is that the old committee had spent years rubber-stamping every new vaccine onto the schedule without meaningful scrutiny, including the COVID vaccine for children at a time when the data on pediatric risk was far from settled.

Shapiro called the overhaul a "blatant disregard for science." But trusting parents to have a conversation with their own doctors about what is right for their own children is not anti-science. It is pro-family. It is pro-freedom. And it is exactly the kind of government restraint that Americans have been demanding for years.

Fifteen Democrat states want Washington bureaucrats to keep making those decisions for your family. Trump and RFK Jr. think you should make them yourself.