Today I filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Bold? Yes. Unprecedented? No.

The model: the successful RICO litigation against Big Tobacco. Government and private insurers sued cigarette manufacturers and their trade organizations for decades of fraudulent health-risk denials. Courts found liability. Tobacco created false uncertainty to manufacture doubt. AAP did the inverse: false certainty to foreclose questions. Both used the trappings of science to prevent actual science.

What Happens When the System Believes Its Own Lies

The lead plaintiff in the case is Andrea Shaw. Her twins received their 18-month vaccines on April 23, 2025. She warned the pediatrician about family history of reactions. Dismissed—AAP’s framework doesn’t recognize family history as a basis for delay.
Next day: both twins in the ER. Blue lips, lethargy, sunken eyes. The ER physician’s documented diagnosis: “post-immunization reaction, initial encounter.” Eight days later, both dead.

Rather than investigate the documented reaction, authorities opened a homicide investigation against Andrea—still pending. Their theories: “postpartum blackout” or “the house was too hot.”
When the system is told vaccines can’t cause serious injury, grieving parents become suspects.

The Studies Nobody Did

In 2002, the Institute of Medicine found no study had ever compared health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. The IOM recommended analyzing the Vaccine Safety Datalink—millions of children’s records already in the database. Just analyze it.
In 2013, IOM checked back. Nothing done. “Future Studies” added to the title.
It’s 2026. Filing cabinet still closed. AAP still telling parents the schedule is “fully tested and safe.”

The Foundational Deception

How did AAP justify expanding the schedule—eleven doses in 1983 to over seventy today—without the recommended studies?

Bait and switch.

January 2002: Paul Offit and colleagues published in AAP’s journal addressing parents’ concerns about multiple vaccines. Parents asked a toxicological question: cumulative effects of aluminum, thimerosal, formaldehyde?

Offit answered a different question. Theoretical calculation about B-cell capacity: infants could respond to 10,000 vaccines at once.
That’s like answering “Is ten beers safe?” with “The liver can theoretically process unlimited water.”
Nothing about aluminum in developing brains. Nothing about synergistic effects. No clinical safety endpoint. But for twenty-four years, that’s been the cornerstone. Distributed to 67,000 pediatricians. Incorporated into the Red Book.
The question was never answered. The answer was to a different and irrelevant question.

When the Studies Get Done Anyway

When researchers conduct the studies AAP calls impossible, results contradict AAP’s assurances.
2020: Plaintiff Dr. Paul Thomas and James Lyons-Weiler published a vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated study—exactly what IOM recommended. Results unfavorable. Eleven days later, Oregon suspended Thomas’s license. Study retracted. Thomas eventually surrendered his license.

Dr. Peter Aaby in Guinea-Bissau: children receiving DTP had five-fold higher all-cause mortality than unvaccinated children. Vaccine worked—and caused net harm.

Most recently: Brian Hooker and Karl Jablonowski analyzed Louisiana health records linking infant deaths to vaccination. Infants vaccinated at two months were 68% more likely to die the following month. Study preprinted—then withdrawn by the advisory board for unspecified reasons. The vaccine mafia fighting back.
The pattern: unfavorable results, marginalized research, destroyed researchers.

The Alarmism Campaign

AAP’s conduct over the past two months stripped away pretense.
December 5, 2025: ACIP voted to allow individual decision-making for hepatitis B birth doses—same as UK and Canada. AAP screamed irresponsible, predicted 99,000 infections. Based on unpublished models. Seventeen EU countries delay birth doses. No catastrophe.
January 5, 2026: HHS moved six vaccines from universal to shared decision-making. Still available, still covered by insurance. AAP called it a very dark day. Told parents to ignore everything from the federal government on vaccines.
Then announced its own schedule contradicting CDC. AAP as competing authority—when government threatens its interests.

When 11 Is ‘Dangerous’ But 10 Is Fine

New CDC schedule: eleven vaccines.

California mandates ten. Massachusetts where AAP filed its lawsuit—mandates nine for K-6.
If eleven is dangerous, California’s ten is worse. Massachusetts’ nine is worse still.
AAP never sued California. Never called Massachusetts dangerous. Never told parents to ignore those state health departments.
Not about safety. About control and revenue.

The Lawsuit That Proves the Conspiracy

AAP and vaccine manufacturers filed jointly to restore the old schedule.
They reduced the conspiracy to a court filing. Identified themselves. Aligned interests. Stated common purpose.
Now making the same representations to the court they’ve made to families for twenty-five years.

The Other Plaintiffs

Shanticia Nelson’s daughter Sa’Niya: dead less than twelve hours after six injections at a catch-up visit. Coroner found swollen brain consistent with encephalitis—known DTaP adverse event. Death certificate: SUDC. Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood. Translation: died from the vaccines, but we can’t say that.
Jane Doe’s daughter: medical exemption for nearly a decade. School consultant—applying AAP’s ridiculously narrow contraindications framework—overrode two treating physicians. Forced catch-up vaccination. Result: surgery, ongoing problems, continued misery.
Dr. Kenneth Stoller: license gone for writing exemptions based on clinical judgment instead of AAP very short checklist.
Children’s Health Defense sues on behalf of families harmed by the fraud.

In short

For twenty-five years AAP mislead families and the country that the schedule is safe, based on a theoretical calculation that never addressed safety. It said that the unexamined giant digital filing cabinets which store data are proof of the safety of the vaccine schedule, while arguing against opening up and examining the contents which would prove safety and net benefit, or lack of safety and net harm.
Now, after HHS attempts modest reforms, AAP and it’s co-conspirators respond with alarmism with numbers they can’t support, and a lawsuit that brings their more deceptions into a federal court.

My pals at CHD are funding this case. All of you owe a debt of gratitude to the organization for exposing this racket and and starting the process of accountability, and especially CEO Mary Holland and General Counsel, for their input, and their much needed patience.

Today we filed suit to explain this racket to the country. I hope people listen.

Rick Jaffe, Esq.

here is the complaint: filestampedcomplaint