For the first time, a federal lawsuit challenges the CDC’s 72-dose childhood vaccine schedule on the grounds that it has never been safety tested as actually administered. It may also surprise you that the government’s own outside advisors have been urging these studies for almost 25 years.

On Friday August 15th, I filed Thomas v. Monarez in federal court in D.C. on behalf of Dr. Paul Thomas, Dr. Kenneth Stoller, and Stand for Health Freedom. The case goes to the heart of the CDC’s childhood immunization program — a 72+ dose medical intervention schedule that has never been tested.

Unlike some of my past cases (Cardenas v Monarez, Kory v. Bonta, Hoang v. Bonta and Stockton v Ferguson), this case will be 100% funded by the community. To make that possible, I’ve created a GiveSendGo campaign. If you have the wherewithal, please donate: https://www.givesendgo.com/shareddecisionmakingforvaccine

Why this case, and why now?

This lawsuit is a natural extension of Cardenas v. Monarez, which I recently dismissed, after the CDC moved the COVID-19 shot for healthy kids into the shared decision-making category and dropped the requirement that Medicaid pediatricians order it. Those were the two objectives of that case, and with them met, the case became moot and it was time to move on to what’s next.

And what’s next was a much bigger problem. I don’t think most of the general public is aware of the two critical facts underlying this case: that the CDC had never tested the complete schedule for safety and that the IOM had been asking the CDC to do so for almost 25 years. One of goals of this lawsuit is to put these two facts before the public at large.

Our plaintiffs live the reality of this unproven vaccine recommended schedule. Dr. Thomas lost his pediatric practice after publishing data comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children—finding vaccinated children had 4.5 times more asthma, 30 times more allergic rhinitis, and 3.3 times more ADHD. Dr. Stoller had his license revoked for writing medical exemptions based on genetic risk factors. And Stand for Health Freedom has spent years supporting families boxed in by ACIP’s one-size-fits-all criteria. This case gives them—and millions of families like them—a chance to confront the system directly.

What makes this different from past lawsuits?

Most challenges have been about state mandates or exemptions. Thomas v. Monarez goes to the source. Every state law, every school requirement, every board disciplinary action traces back to ACIP’s “Category A” recommendations — which function as binding standards despite their advisory nature.

Our suit challenges the CDC on multiple constitutional and administrative grounds. First, the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act by issuing de facto mandates without rule-making and ignoring cumulative safety. Second, it violated the Constitution by creating untested federal standards that states enforce as mandates, stripping parents of informed consent, denying medically vulnerable children recognition, and suppressing dissenting physicians through coordinated professional retaliation. If the CDC childhood recommendation foundation fails, the mandates built on top of it must be reconsidered.

The 27-year cover-up

Perhaps most damning: the CDC exists within HHS, which has disregarded federal law for 27 years by failing to submit the required biennial vaccine safety reports to Congress. During this decades-long silence, the schedule ballooned from 24 to 72+ doses, autism rates exploded from 1 in 150 to 1 in 31, and chronic disease now affects over half of American children.

What we’re asking the court to do

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.

Seventeen EU nations, the UK, and Japan already operate this way: no mandates, 90%+ vaccination rates, and healthier children across every metric. These countries prove the CDC’s core premise wrong—high vaccination rates don’t require coercion. Parents make responsible choices when given honest information and medical freedom. The CDC assumes America cannot do the same. The data say otherwise.

The bottom line

This case puts the CDC’s entire childhood program on trial. For decades, the agency has demanded proof of harm while refusing to do the studies that could provide it, and physicians who attempt to fill that research gap or challenge the schedule or ACIP’s narrow contraindications and precautions framework are ridiculed and delicensed. Meanwhile, American children have become the sickest in the developed world under the most aggressive vaccine schedule on earth.

That era is over. They want to claim the program is safe? Fine. Prove it.

And once again, this case will be 100% funded by the community. Check out my campaign here: https://www.givesendgo.com/shareddecisionmakingforvaccine

Here is the complaint: complaint2

Tally Ho!
Rick Jaffe, Esq.