The lawsuit alleges the pediatrician organization has violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
A group founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), alleging that the organization has violated federal law by saying that vaccines on the federal child vaccine schedule are safe.
Children’s Health Defense, which was founded by Kennedy, alleged in a complaint filed on Jan. 21 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the AAP has violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by repeatedly describing the schedule as fully tested and proven safe, even though there is a dearth of studies comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
The AAP did not return a request for comment. It is involved with multiplelawsuits against Kennedy, and has created a vaccine schedule that is different from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) schedule, which has been narrowed multiple times since Kennedy took office.
The RICO Act makes it a crime to participate in an ongoing criminal enterprise or organization.
The complaint alleges that RICO comes into play because AAP, vaccine manufacturers, and others are operating as part of an enterprise that aims to maintain and expand vaccine uptake “by assuring pediatricians, hospitals, parents, and policymakers that the schedule is categorically safe, while concealing material facts about the lack of testing, inadequacies in the vaccine safety monitoring programs, and financial incentives tied to vaccine schedule compliance.”
AAP lists vaccine companies as partners, and some of its members receive payments from one or more vaccine manufacturers.
“This is an organization that is far more allied with Big Pharma and with vaccine manufacturers than it is with parents and children,” Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times.
Lack of Comparison Data
The Institute of Medicine said in 2002 that there were no studies comparing children who received vaccines as recommended to children who did not, and said the CDC should explore the feasibility of studying the matter using data from its Vaccine Safety Datalink system.
“The data existed in this giant digital filing cabinet,” Children’s Health Defense’s new complaint states. “The [Institute of Medicine] was just asking the CDC to analyze the data.”
In 2013, the institute said that studies using data from the system had not been done.
“Twenty-four years later, the filing cabinet remains unexamined,” the new complaint reads.
AAP members have said that children can handle multiple vaccines at once. The AAP stated on one of its websites that “combining some vaccines in a single shot—or giving several shots at the same visit—has been carefully studied and tested over many years to ensure it works well for children” and that “each childhood vaccine has been carefully tested on its own and in combination with others.”
That statement omits the fact that no studies have compared children who receive all vaccines on the schedule to those who receive none, the complaint reads.
The CDC’s latest vaccine schedule routinely recommends eight vaccines, including four doses when an infant is 2 months of age. Officials said those vaccines are recommended across peer nations. Children’s Health Defense has expressed support for the updated schedule.
The AAP has also stated that clinical trial oversight boards would not authorize trials comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children, since vaccines are safe and effective.
Some outside researchers have examined the health outcomes of unvaccinated children versus those of vaccinated children. A number havefound better outcomes among unvaccinated children.
“The pattern is consistent: when researchers conduct the studies AAP insists are impossible, the results contradict AAP’s safety assurances,” Children’s Health Defense stated.
