Kennedy allies target states to overturn vaccine mandates for schoolchildren

An article in The New York Times describes a coordinated national campaign by allies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, to roll back long-standing vaccine mandates for schoolchildren in the United States. A newly formed umbrella group, the Medical Freedom Act Coalition, which includes at least 15 nonprofit organizations such as Children’s Health Defense and groups linked to Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, is advancing state-level legislation to eliminate or significantly weaken school-entry vaccination requirement These laws, which have for decades required immunization against diseases such as measles, polio, and pertussis before children attend day care or kindergarten, are portrayed by the coalition as coercive “medical mandates.” Leaders such as Leslie Manookian explicitly frame 2026 as the year to “burst the dam open” in states where they see the best chances of success, while Children’s Health Defense legal counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg states...