CDC Sued for Untested Childhood Vaccine Schedule

Two former physicians have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for recommending the childhood vaccine schedule without proving safety. Currently, CDC officials recommend that children receive more than 70 doses of over a dozen vaccines.^{1 2}

The plaintiffs in this historic lawsuit are Paul Thomas, MD, a former pediatrician with 40 years of experience and Kenneth P. Stoller, MD, a board-certified pediatrician for over 30 years, together with Stand for Health Freedom.³ Both doctors have had their licenses revoked for criticizing the the CDC vaccine schedule and granting medical exemptions to vaccination.

Dr. Thomas’s medical license was suspended in 2020 for not adequately vaccinating pediatric patients.⁴ His license was revoked days after he published a study showing that vaccinated children have higher rates of chronic illness compared to unvaccinated children.⁵ Dr. Stoller’s medical license was revoked in 2021 for writing vaccine medical exemptions for pediatric patients, which were often based on genetic testing, so that they could attend school without receiving every vaccine mandated by the state of Caifornia.⁶

Plaintiffs Request Shared Decision Making for Childhood Vaccines

The lawsuit requests that the federal childhood vaccine schedule be revised until CDC officials can provide adequate scientific evidence the cumulative vaccine schedule is safe. The Plaintiffs request that all of the vaccines listed on the CDC’s childhood schedule, rather than being recommended by the CDC, be placed under category B which requires “shared decision making” between the doctor and the patient.⁷

Currently, childhood vaccines that are recommended by CDC officials for “universal use” by children fall under category A recommendations and apply to all children in any age group. Category A CDC vaccine recommendations do not permit doctors to rely on their medical judgment when deciding whether to administer a vaccine to a patient. It is essentially a “one-size fits all” vaccine policy and in many states the federally recommended childhood vaccine schedule is mandated for daycare and school attendance. A doctor who tries to protect a patient he or she considers to be at increased susceptibility for being harmed by a category A vaccine faces the risk of having a state medical board suspend or revoke their medical license.⁸

Richard Jaffee, attorney for the plaintiffs said:

We’re not asking to ban vaccines. We’re asking the courts to force the CDC to change the childhood vaccine schedule from Category A recommendations to Category B—shared decision-making between families and physicians—until the CDC does the testing its advisors have recommended for decades”⁹

Childhood Vaccine Schedule is Arbitrary and Capricious

The Plaintiffs ask the court to “restore scientific integrity and medical freedom” with a “declaration that CDC’s framework is arbitrary and capricious” and only categorizing the childhood vaccine schedule as Category A if the evidence supports it.¹⁰ The Complaint points out that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has demanded that all religious, and philosophical exemptions to vaccination be eliminated in order to force universal compliance with the childhood vaccine schedule.¹¹

The Complaint further states that prior to approval individual vaccines are subject to limited clinical trials which generally only monitor adverse events over a few days or weeks. “Neither the FDA nor the CDC has ever required or conducted safety testing of the cumulative childhood schedule, now at 72 doses.”¹²

Institute of Medicine’s Warnings Ignored While Kids Get Sicker

About 2.7 million vaccine adverse events, including hospitalizations, injuries and deaths, have been reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) since the system became operational in 1990 and about 50 percent of those reports are related to COVID shots.¹³ The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and CDC officials have continued to ignore warnings by the National Academy of Sciences committees that the early childhood vaccine schedule has not been adequately tested for safety. There have been few biological mechanisms studies, no studies comparing health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children,, safety analyses or identification of vulnerable groups.^{14 15}

While the federally recommended childhood vaccine schedule continues to go untested and is required for all school-aged children, American children are reported to be the sickest among all developed nations with over 50 percent suffering from at least one chronic poor health condition. According to the Complaint:

The numbers are staggering. According to the CDC, autism prevalence exploded from 1 in 150 children (2000) to 1 in 31 (2023). Asthma affects 1 in 12 children, up from 1 on 32 in 1980. Type 1 diabetes incidences increases 304% annually. Food allergies increased 50% between 1997-2011. Nearly 20% of children are obese….The temporal correlation is undeniable. The vaccine schedule expanded from 24 doses (1983) to 72+ doses (2025). Chronic illness rates rose in parallel. Yet, CDC has never investigated whether its aggressive vaccination program contributed to this epidemic.¹⁶

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 required the Department of Health and Human Services Department (DHHS) to report its efforts to reduce vaccine adverse events to Congress every two years. While the task force was put together to complete this task in 1990, it was disbanded within eight years. Since 1998, the childhood vaccine schedule increased from 24 doses of vaccines to more than 70 doses of vaccines. However, reports detailing efforts to decrease adverse reactions to vaccination have not been delivered to Congress.

Current Childhood Vaccine Schedule Violates Constitutional Rights

The Plaintiffs allege that the current childhood vaccine schedule deprives children and their parents of their Fifth Amendment right to life, liberty and property without due process of the law, as courts have found that parents have a liberty interest in deciding their children’s medical care and children have a fundamental right to bodily integrity.

Plaintiffs allege that the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment is also violated by the current childhood vaccine schedule as implemented by the CDC. Medically vulnerable children are not protected by federal vaccine use guidelines as children, who have suffered autoimmune disease, seizures or regression after vaccination that may place them at greater risk of suffering adverse responses to vaccines, are still recommended to receive all of the vaccines. Similarly, children who are vulnerable to vaccine adverse events for genetic or other biological reasons that are sometimes revealed in a personal or family medical history are recommended to receive every vaccine on the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule – despite their potential increased individual susceptibility for adverse health outcomes.^{17 18}

The censorship surrounding alternative viewpoints from the government including any criticism of the childhood vaccine schedule and silencing of any scientific debate is a violation of the First Amendment.¹⁹ According to the Complaint:

The pattern is unmistakable: the government has created a system where only one viewpoint on vaccine safety may be expressed without professional consequences. Physicians must either parrot the CDC’s position that the untested schedule is universally safe, or face career annihilation. This forced orthodoxy violates the core of the First Amendment, which exists precisely to prevent the government from decreeing official truths in matters of scientific debate.²⁰

Plaintiffs make it clear that this case does not seek to challenge state’s rights to require vaccination as set forth under Jacobsen v. Massachusetts. Rather, the court challenge is to the CDC’s universal medical standards set forth without providing adequate scientific basis to support it.

CDC to Review Childhood Vaccine Schedule

The DHHS appointed members of the panel advising the CDC—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—announced in June 2025 that they will be reviewing the effects of the childhood vaccine schedule, including the cumulative effect of the vaccines and their ingredients ,as well as the timing of the shots. Martin Kulldorff, PhD, who is chair of ACIP, acknowledged that the current childhood vaccine schedule provides more vaccines than any other developed nation.²¹

If you would like to receive an e-mail notice of the most recent articles published in The Vaccine Reaction each week, click here.