IMA: "Big Pharma-Backed Medical Groups Use the Courts to Protect Industry Profits at the Expense of American Families."

The Independent Medical Alliance (IMA), a national coalition representing more than 12,000 independent physicians and clinicians, today released the following statement after Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Chairman Milhoan confirmed to IMA that the panel has been disbanded. Sources also indicate that the Administration plans to reconstitute a new committee, rather than pursue a lengthy appeal of U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's March 16 ruling that stayed the appointments of 13 ACIP members and nullified all committee votes taken since June 2025.

"This is what happens when Big Pharma's business model is threatened. They lawyer up. A coalition of industry-funded organizations went judge-shopping and found a willing partner to shut down the first ACIP in decades that dared to ask hard questions about vaccine safety, efficacy, and the conflicts of interest that have plagued this process for years. As a physician and pathologist, I have spent my career following the evidence wherever it leads. The American people deserve a vaccine advisory committee that does the same, one free from industry capture, committed to rigorous science, and accountable to patients, not pharmaceutical balance sheets. The Administration's decision to reconstitute ACIP is the right move. We look forward to the appointment of a new committee that restores scientific integrity and puts the health of American families first." – Dr. Ryan Cole, Head of Medical & Scientific Affairs, Independent Medical Alliance

The judicial decision effectively canceled a critical ACIP meeting scheduled for March 18-19 that was to have included, for the first time in the committee's 62-year history, a formal discussion of vaccine injury, a subject the previous committee never meaningfully addressed.

IMA Senior Fellow and ACIP Chairman Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist and one of the stayed ACIP members, was singled out by name in Judge Murphy's opinion, despite his direct clinical experience treating children with cardiac complications, including those following vaccination.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and six other medical organizations, groups with deep financial ties to vaccine manufacturers, that challenged Secretary Kennedy's efforts to bring transparency, accountability, and genuine scientific independence to a committee long captured by pharmaceutical industry interests.

Judge Murphy's 45-page opinion blocked the January 2026 revisions to the childhood immunization schedule, which had reduced routine recommendations from 17 diseases to 11 in alignment with European standards. The ruling also voided ACIP votes to remove the hepatitis B birth dose for low-risk infants, to transition COVID-19 vaccination to shared clinical decision-making, and to eliminate thimerosal from children's flu vaccines, all measures IMA physicians supported as evidence-based reforms.

Who is Judge Murphy?

Overturned for "Rogue" Activism: In 2025, Judge Murphy attempted to block the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy even after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay against his initial injunction. Even Justice Elena Kagan criticized Judge Murphy for his continued defiance of the Supreme Court stay, and the Solicitor General was forced to seek a rare clarification from the high court to stop his interference in executive branch authority.