March 13, 2026
This week’s newsletter discusses lawsuits concerning racial diversity, social media addiction, the childhood vaccine schedule, and gender-affirming care. To read any of our previous newsletters, please find our archive here.
Racial Diversity on State Medical Board
In Do No Harm v. Landry (Docket No. 5:24-cv-00016, Western District of Louisiana; Docket No. 25-30568, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit), Do No Harm alleges that a Louisiana law requiring the governor to ensure racial diversity on the state medical board violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by imposing an unconstitutional racial mandate. The statute requires that appointments to the medical board alternate between minority and non-minority candidates, which the plaintiff contends creates an unlawful race-based quota system for board composition. Do No Harm argues this violates the constitutional prohibition on racial classifications, as established in cases like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).
The district court dismissed the case, finding that Governor Jeff Landry was not the proper Defendant because he demonstrated he would not enforce the law, leaving Do No Harm without standing to sue him. On September 30, 2025, Do No Harm filed an appeal in the Fifth Circuit challenging that dismissal, arguing that the governor is the appropriate Defendant as the official responsible for making appointments to the medical board and that his stated intent not to enforce the law does not eliminate Do No Harm's standing to seek declaratory relief preventing future enforcement. Do No Harm seeks reversal of the dismissal, so the case can proceed on the merits of whether Louisiana's racial diversity requirement for medical board appointments violates the Equal Protection Clause.
The case is ongoing. If of interest, we covered a similar set of cases in our Health Equity Litigation Tracking Report in July 2025.
Social Media Addiction and Youth
On November 13, 2025, TikTok, Meta Platforms (Facebook and Instagram) and YouTube (through its parent company, Google) filed related lawsuits against California Attorney General Rob Bonta challenging the passage of California’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act (SB 976). This Act, which became law on Sept. 20, 2024, attempts to protect minors’ health by restricting “addictive design features” used by social media platforms and requiring parental consent before platforms can provide minors with a personalized feed. The cases – TikTok Inc. v. Bonta (Docket No. 5:25-cv-09789), Meta Platforms, Inc. v. Bonta (Docket No. 5:25-cv-09792) and Google LLC and YouTube, LLC v. Bonta (Docket No. 5:25-cv-09795) – were each filed in the United States District Court of the Northern District of California. The Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief preventing California from enforcing the statute, arguing that it violates the First Amendment by regulating protected speech.
These cases follow a failed attempt to challenge the same law by NetChoice LLC, a trade group that represents Meta, Snap Inc. (developers of Snapchat), X Corp., and other large tech companies. In NetChoice v. Bonta, the Plaintiff argued that the California law’s content restrictions violated the First Amendment, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that NetChoice did not have standing and failed to prove that the algorithmic social media feeds are expressive speech. However, the Ninth Circuit left open the possibility that some of the law’s provisions and/or applications were unconstitutional, such as a requirement that platforms not show minors the number of “likes” on a post. Notably, in oral arguments for this case, Judge Ryan D. Nelson compared the addictive algorithms of these large tech companies to tobacco products.
The three cases brought by TikTok, Meta, and YouTube all appear to be a direct response to the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in NetChoice. However, all three tech giants will need to prove that their algorithmic social media feeds are expressive speech; something NetChoice was unable to do. If they are able to do so, this could limit the applicability of California’s law and make it harder for regulators to limit companies’ addictive designs choices. All three cases are ongoing.
Childhood Vaccine Schedules
On February 24, 2026, 14 states and the Governor of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Department of Health and Human Services, acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Jay Bhattacharya, and the CDC, challenging the January 5, 2026, Decision Memo that stripped seven childhood vaccines of their universally recommended status, as well as the replacement of members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). This case is similar to the American Academy of Pediatrics v. Kennedy case which we have covered in our November, July, January 30, and February 13 newsletters.
In State of Arizona et al. v. Kennedy et al. (Docket No. 3:26-cv-01609, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California), Plaintiffs assert that the Decision Memo is a radical departure from public health and science, and that the CDC's reliance on Denmark's vaccine policies to support changes to the childhood vaccine schedule is unfounded. In particular, the complaint states that the CDC's previous vaccine recommendations have provided life-saving interventions for children born in the U.S. between 1994 and 2023, with researchers estimating that routine childhood vaccines “will have prevented approximately 508 million cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1,129,000 deaths, resulting in direct savings of $540 billion and societal savings of $2.7 trillion.”
Plaintiffs point to the ACIP Policies & Procedures, which requires voting members to be “acknowledged experts” with an “understanding of the immunization issues covered by ACIP,” and that they should be experts in the use of vaccines in clinical practice and have expertise with clinical or laboratory vaccine research. Plaintiffs note that in 2025, Kennedy dismissed all 17 ACIP voting members and replaced them with appointees who they allege lack the requisite scientific knowledge on vaccines and instead hold minority anti-vaccine views, with many having no documented prior experience conducting research on vaccines or vaccine policy. Plaintiffs allege that Kennedy reconstituted ACIP in an unlawful manner that fails to follow federal requirements, and as a result, ACIP consists of unqualified appointees who ignore extensive evidence on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
The Plaintiff States seek declaratory and injunctive relief to declare the new childhood vaccine schedule and new ACIP appointments unlawful and to have them set aside. Defendants have not yet responded to the complaint.
Gender-Affirming Care
In American Academy of Pediatrics v. Federal Trade Commission (Docket No. 1:26-cv-00508, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia), filed on February 17, 2026, Plaintiffs American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) assert the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) issuance of a Civil Investigative Demand (CID), a subpoena, targeting AAP's speech about gender-affirming care is a violation of the First Amendment for retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, as well as the Fourth Amendment for unreasonable search.
The CID, which the FTC issued on January 15, 2026, demands a sweeping array of information about AAP's speech related to gender-affirming care and support for transgender and gender-diverse youth, including all statements AAP has made about Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Treatment, the identities of any person evaluating the science of AAP's statements, AAP's communications with other organizations about the development of clinical guidance on gender-affirming care, and AAP's financial information. In its 2018 Policy Statement, which was reaffirmed in 2023, AAP outlined the role of pediatricians in addressing the needs and challenges of transgender and gender-diverse youth, but did not promote specific pediatricians, clinics, therapies, drugs, or other services. As the Trump Administration continues to adopt an anti-gender affirming care agenda, as seen with the January 2025 Executive Order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” and rescission of federal grants for organizations that treat transgender youth, AAP argues that this investigation was aimed at implementing the President's policies rather than any legitimate law-enforcement objectives.
In its complaint, AAP states that the issuance of the CID is intended to intimidate AAP from speaking about the state of scientific research on gender-affirming care because the Trump Administration does not agree with it, and that the threat of investigation or prosecution is prohibited by the First Amendment. Additionally, AAP claims that the overbroad subpoena is a retaliatory action that violates the Fourth Amendment. AAP requests the court enjoin the FTC from implementing or enforcing the CID and from further interfering with AAP's First Amendment rights. The court has not yet ruled on a motion for a preliminary injunction.
This investigation into AAP comes as the organization has been facing several legal and political challenges. The federal government attempted to take away $12 million of AAP’s public health funding, a move blocked by a judge in early 2026 and covered in our January 16 newsletter. The Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Secretary Kennedy, brought a Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act suit against AAP in January 2026, which we covered in our February 13 newsletter. Additionally, AAP is still involved in litigation with Kennedy and HHS, noted above, over their changes to federal vaccine policy.
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