California Attorney General said he co‑led a coalition of 22 attorneys general and the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary , urging HHS to stop actions the coalition says undermine federal vaccine guidance.
The attorney general’s office said the coalition warned HHS that actions over the past year have created confusion and made it harder for states to rely on federal public health guidance; the letter states HHS has not identified new scientific evidence that would justify overhauling vaccine recommendation categories.
The coalition told HHS to preserve the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ role in setting vaccine recommendations; the office said ACIP was dismissed and reconstituted in June 2025 and that HHS reinstated the Task Force for Safer Childhood Vaccines in August 2025 after nearly three decades of dormancy.
The letter also urged HHS to retain the current three‑tier recommendation categories; routine, risk‑based and Shared Clinical Decision‑Making, or SCDM; and criticized HHS for moving to expand SCDM use without citing new scientific evidence; the coalition said misusing SCDM, including for the hepatitis B birth dose, could lower vaccination rates and leave more people vulnerable to preventable disease.
Bonta’s office noted ongoing legal action; it said he co‑led a multistate lawsuit in February 2026 challenging the administration’s overhaul of the childhood immunization schedule, and a federal judge ruled this month that the coalition has standing to challenge the CDC’s changes.
Joining Bonta in the letter, the attorney general’s office said, were the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaiʻi, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, the Commonwealth of Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, and the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Federal
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Named 2 times in this story.
Portrait: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
State
Rob Bonta
Attorney General · Democrat
Named 2 times in this story.
Portrait: Official portrait
Sources & methodology
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