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On Jan. 21, 2026, Children’s Health Defense filed a federal lawsuit accusing the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) of running a decades-long scheme to mislead parents, doctors, and policymakers about the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule.
Filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the lawsuit alleges that the AAP violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by making false and unqualified safety claims, while maintaining undisclosed financial ties to vaccine manufacturers and incentivizing pediatricians to maximize vaccination rates.
This lawsuit is a landmark challenge to one of the most powerful medical institutions in the country (and the world). This case has the power to reshape how pediatric medicine, vaccine policy, and informed consent are understood in America.
What This Lawsuit Alleges
According to the complaint, the AAP:
- Promotes vaccine safety claims without comprehensive safety testing, including the absence of studies comparing health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated children
- Suppresses and misrepresents scientific uncertainty, creating a “false certainty”
- Relies on a foundational fraud, a theoretical claim that infants could safely receive thousands of vaccines at once, despite no clinical evidence of the safety of that claim
- Uses its influence to punish dissenting physicians, damaging the careers of pediatricians who questioned vaccine safety claims
- Fails to disclose financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies that manufacture childhood vaccines
Similar to the legal strategy that ultimately exposed Big Tobacco, plaintiffs argue these actions constitute a coordinated pattern of fraud under RICO.
Why This Case Matters
For decades, the AAP has been treated as the authoritative voice on pediatric health. Its policies shape what parents are told in exam rooms, what doctors are allowed to question, and what options families are given, or denied.
This lawsuit seeks to expose how institutional power, financial conflicts, and untested assumptions became embedded as “settled science,” closing the door on legitimate inquiry and informed consent.
As CHD’s CEO, Mary Holland, stated, the case forces a reckoning with whether children’s health, or corporate profit, is the guiding priority.
The Parties Bringing this Case
The plaintiffs include:
- Children’s Health Defense
- Pediatricians whose licenses and livelihoods were destroyed for deviating from AAP guidelines
- Parents whose children were injured or died after routine childhood vaccinations
- Families whose medical exemptions were overridden by rigid adherence to AAP policy
Their stories illustrate how policy decisions made at the associational level play out at points of care, with irreversible consequences.
What the Lawsuit Seeks
- Damages awarded to injured plaintiffs
- AAP’s admission that comprehensive vaccine safety testing has never been done
- A court order that AAP is prohibited from making further unqualified safety claims about vaccines
At its core, the case demands transparency, accountability, and an end to medical dogma that masquerades as science.
