A federal judge’s decision to halt the Trump administration’s attempt to reshape childhood vaccine policy drew a pointed response Monday from a former senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who warned that politics has already eroded trust in the nation’s public health system. Now, a vaccine panel scheduled to meet on Wednesday has been postponed. Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ + news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis , the former CDC director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and now chief medical officer at New York’s Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, said the ruling represented a necessary check on what he described as politically driven vaccine policymaking under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Big news!” Daskalakis wrote in a text message to The Advocate . “We should all be relieved that science and law aligned to reverse capricious vaccine policy designed to validate the authoritarian and self-serving agenda of the secretary of health.” Related : RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz announce sweeping measures to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth A federal judge in Boston blocked key elements of the administration’s effort to alter federal recommendations for childhood vaccines, siding with medical groups that argued the policy threatened public health and had been adopted improperly. The order pauses the changes while litigation proceeds. In January, the CDC issued new guidance narrowing the number of routinely recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11 and downgrading several others, a shift critics say could reduce vaccination rates and increase the burden of preventable diseases. In his order , U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy found that the medical groups challenging the policy were likely to succeed on key legal claims and that the changes to vaccine recommendations risked causing real public-health harm if allowed to proceed while the case is litigated. The lawsuit was brought by organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics, which welcomed the ruling and said it restores a science-based approach to vaccine policy. The group called Monday’s decision “historic” and a “welcome outcome.” “When Secretary Kennedy made unsupported and unscientific changes to pediatric immunization recommendations last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) was mission-bound to step up and push back against these dangerous actions that have sowed chaos and confusion for parents and pediatricians across the country,” the organization said in a statement. “This decision effectively means that a science-based process for developing immunization recommendations is not to be trifled with and represents a critical step to restoring scientific decision-making to federal vaccine policy that has kept children healthy for years.” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement to The Advocate that “HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.” For Daskalakis, who resigned from the CDC last year amid mounting concerns about political interference in federal health policy, the ruling also raises broader questions about Kennedy’s qualifications for the role. “This, however, is an important statement on the validity of Kennedy’s place in health leadership,” he wrote. Still, Daskalakis, who believes Kennedy should be fired, warned that reversing the policy may not fully repair the damage. “I fear that so much damage has already been done,” he added. The ruling also comes just days before a scheduled meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the independent panel that evaluates vaccine data and guides the nation’s immunization schedule. The committee was expected to meet on March 18 and 19. Public health groups have already raised concerns about the direction of vaccine policy ahead of the meeting. In comments submitted to federal officials, the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases warned that deviations from the longstanding scientific review process used by ACIP risk undermining transparency and public trust in immunization policy. The group cautioned that weakening that evidence-based framework could “legitimize misinformation” and create confusion about vaccine safety and effectiveness. But the meeting may no longer happen on schedule. A source with knowledge of the planning told The Advocate that the ACIP meeting is expected to be postponed. An HHS official confirmed that it has been delayed. For decades, ACIP has served as the scientific backbone of U.S. vaccine policy, reviewing clinical data and advising the CDC on how vaccines should be used to protect the public.