BOSTON — A federal judge temporarily blocked the U.S. government from implementing changes to the childhood vaccination schedule. The ruling was issued by Judge Brian E. Murphy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Judge Murphy suspended the appointments made by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The judge ordered that all decisions made by the newly constituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices be put on hold.

A meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices scheduled for Wednesday was postponed. Kennedy had fired all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with his own appointees.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups filed a lawsuit arguing that Kennedy's changes to vaccine recommendations violated federal law. Kennedy sought to reduce the number of recommended childhood vaccine shots from 17 to 11.

In January, Kennedy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced the number of diseases included in the childhood vaccine schedule from 18 to 11. Kennedy's changes ended broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against influenza, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis, and RSV.

The reappointed members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices included individuals who had expressed skeptical or anti-vaccine views. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is an advisory panel that issues recommendations to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine schedules.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said, "HHS looks forward to this judge's decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing." Dr. Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said, "Today is a day to celebrate the triumph of science over misinformation. This is a huge blow to Kennedy's vaccine policies."

Kennedy was a longtime antivaccine activist before joining President Donald Trump's administration. Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said, "If anyone has any questions about what's the appropriate vaccine schedule for their children, the best thing to do is to talk to their pediatricians."