Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened an investigation into the American Academy of Pediatrics over allegations that the group may be pushing childhood vaccines to benefit financially from pharmaceutical industry ties.
Paxton’s office issued a Civil Investigative Demand to the organization to examine the reasoning behind its vaccine recommendations and how those recommendations shape the broader childhood immunization landscape, according to an August 5 press release announced by the attorney general.
Paxton’s office described the American Academy of Pediatrics as the largest professional association of pediatricians in the country. The organization has issued informal vaccine guidance since the early 1930s and, beginning in 1995, joined with other groups to help develop the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Childhood Vaccine Schedule in what it described as an effort to keep recommendations unified for providers.
The investigation follows changes at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was sworn in in 2025. Kennedy reconstituted the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of scientific and immunization experts that has historically advised HHS on vaccine policy, and HHS began revising the CDC’s childhood schedule.
The academy sued HHS in July 2025, arguing that Kennedy’s changes to the CDC schedule were not scientifically grounded and that his reshaping of the advisory committee was unlawful. On August 19, 2025, the group released its own immunization schedule for infants, children, and adolescents for the first time in its history and called on insurers to cover every vaccine included in it.
Paxton’s office said the academy’s leading corporate donors are pharmaceutical companies that stand to lose revenue if fewer vaccines appear on the revised federal schedule.
“Parents deserve vaccine recommendations that are driven by science and the best interests of their children, not by financial gains or bribes from Big Pharma,” Paxton said. “My office will fight to protect kids’ health and uphold transparency in the medical industry alongside President Trump and Secretary Kennedy. If the American Academy of Pediatrics is giving medical guidance that is fueled by financial incentives, we will expose and put an end to this unlawful behavior.”
The new inquiry expands on a broader investigation Paxton launched in January 2026 targeting pediatric medical providers, insurance companies, vaccine manufacturers, and other entities over allegedly deceptive childhood vaccine recommendations. His office said the academy’s influence across the pediatric medical field emerged as a central concern during that earlier review.
“Further, if the only time in history that the AAP has broken with the CDC on childhood vaccine recommendations is when its top donors would be subject to a substantial financial loss, that is a fact that simply cannot be overlooked,” the attorney general’s press release concluded.
Provided by Dallas Express
