On January 21, 2026, the advocacy organization, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), and additional plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), alleging a “decades-long racketeering scheme” to conceal vaccine risks.
According to the 55-page complaint, the AAP has violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for years by misleading the public, concealing data, accepting funding from vaccine manufacturers, and financially rewarding pediatric practices with high vaccination rates. The five plaintiffs suing alongside CHD include Paul Thomas, M.D., and Kenneth Stoller, M.D., and the parents of children who claim to have suffered vaccine-induced injury or death.
A Pattern of Activity
A RICO lawsuit fits the statute due to the AAP’s long-term pattern of activity regarding vaccines, said Rick Jaffe, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
“For decades, the AAP has told parents that the childhood vaccine schedule is ‘thoroughly tested for safety’ while knowing…that the schedule as a whole has never been safety-tested,” said Jaffe. “No study has ever examined the cumulative effects of giving children dozens of vaccines in the combinations and timing the schedule requires.”
The AAP “has repeatedly represented through [numerous publications], that the childhood vaccine schedule has been fully tested and proven safe,” the lawsuit alleges, persuading parents to adhere to the increasing number of injections. Safety claims, the plaintiffs argue, are not backed up by any studies comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children. The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) concluded in both 2002 and 2013 that research comparing these populations was absent.
Media Ignores Suit
Mainstream media publications ignored the lawsuit, noted panelists at a February 9 conference by The Heritage Foundation, instead devoting attention to AAP’s lawsuit filed in July against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, for removing the COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women and healthy children from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended vaccine schedule.
AAP has submitted multiple legal claims in recent months to block and overturn changes to the federal vaccine recommendations and instead published its own schedule in February.
The AAP Loop
Since 1983 and especially after the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, the CDC vaccine schedule has grown to cover up to 18 diseases. The legislation shields vaccine manufacturers from liability for vaccine injury and death.
“AAP membership more than tripled during this period from 20,000 in 1980 to 67,000 today,” states the complaint, offering one reason why.
“Pediatricians are among the lowest-paid physician specialties in America, earning on average around $265,000 annually, less than half what top specialists earn,” the lawsuit states.
“Vaccine administration is essential revenue for pediatric practices,” the complaint states. “Pediatricians collect administration fees for each injection, performance bonuses tied to vaccination rates, and bill for the well-child visits into which vaccinations are bundled.”
Multiple vaccine manufacturers contribute tens of thousands of dollars to AAP, states the organization’s website. Pharmaceutical companies market their products through physicians’ offices, and parents have traditionally put a great deal of trust in pediatricians.
This year, the CDC reduced the number of recommended vaccines from 17 in 2024 to ten. Breaking with tradition, the AAP chose not to follow the new CDC recommendation and publish its own list.
The Physician Plaintiffs
Since the passage of the 1986 Act, pediatricians are generally protected from legal repercussions if a vaccine results in injury or death. The ‘no fault’ legislation places compensation responsibility on the government, where complaints move through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which “denies the vast majority of claims,” said Jaffe.
The lawsuit describes how Plaintiffs Stoller and Thomas faced censorship and disciplinary action related to their vaccine practices. Thomas, himself in 2020, co-authored research regarding vaccinated and unvaccinated children to fill what he believed was a gap in vaccine data.
Thomas’ medical license was suspended due to his “deviation from AAP protocols.” Stoller had his medical license revoked in two states after signing off on vaccine medical exemptions for patients, the suit alleges.
The Parent Plaintiffs
The parents in the lawsuit, Andrea Shaw, Shanticia Nelson, and an unnamed Jane Doe, claim various degrees of harm and death after their children received vaccinations.
The lead plaintiff, Shaw, is a 21-year-old mother whose twins both died within days of their 18-month vaccinations, says Jaffe.
“The emergency room documented a post-immunization reaction,” said Jaffe. “But because the AAP has conditioned the entire medical and legal system to treat vaccines as incapable of causing harm, the system’s only explanation was that the mother must have killed her own children. She was and continues to be investigated for homicide. That’s what happens when you tell the world a product is categorically safe — when a child dies after receiving it, someone else has to be blamed.”
Another plaintiff’s one-year-old daughter died less than twelve hours after receiving six injections containing twelve antigens in a single catch-up visit, Jaffe said. Although the mother questioned the number of shots, she was assured that AAP guidelines were safe. The cause of death was listed as sudden unexplained infant death syndrome.
Similarities to Tobacco Lawsuits
In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice sued large tobacco companies for illegal RICO activity. In the landmark case, a federal judge determined that “despite internal recognition” of the detrimental health impact of smoking cigarettes, manufacturers “have publicly denied, distorted, and minimized the hazards of smoking for decades,” to continue to sell products and make a profit.
“We allege that this is similar to what the tobacco companies did, just in reverse,” Jaffe said. “Big Tobacco manufactured false uncertainty – ‘we don’t really know if cigarettes cause cancer.’ We allege that the AAP manufactures false certainty – ‘the schedule is safe.’”
Jaffe says RICO allows the plaintiffs to go after AAP because it is the trade association that markets and enforces the schedule.
“RICO provides treble damages and injunctive relief, meaning we can seek both compensation and a court order requiring the AAP to correct its misrepresentations, if the court rules in our favor after trial,” said Jaffe.
Treble damages allow the court to award three times the amount of actual damage.
Mandate Repeals
Aside from the lawsuit, Sen. Rand Paul (KY-R) introduced a bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), to repeal the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.
In addition to the repeal, several states are taking steps to end vaccine mandates. Those efforts, and the RICO suit, are a step forward for vaccine safety, says Michelle Cretella, M.D., a longtime pediatrician and member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“I, and many other physicians, can attest to significant financial conflicts of interest in medicine in the area of vaccines and look forward to discovery in this lawsuit,” said Cretella.
Jaffe is expecting the AAP to file a motion to dismiss the case in April, which will take several months to work its way through the court.
Ashley Bateman ([email protected]) writes from Virginia.
