Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating how a pediatricians’ association determines its vaccine recommendations and whether financial incentives have influenced its guidance.
Founded in 1930, the American Academy of Pediatrics has helped shape childhood vaccination recommendations nationwide and has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on its childhood vaccine schedule since 1995.
“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,” Paxton said.
Earlier this year, Paxton launched investigations into multiple vaccine providers, examining whether they failed to disclose bonuses and other financial benefits tied to the number of vaccines administered.
He also accused pediatricians of denying care based on vaccination status and attaching physicians’ wages or employment to vaccine quotas.
According to Paxton’s office, this investigation revealed the scope of influence the AAP has over the childhood medical industry.
Paxton said the CDC vaccine framework that the AAP helped create and promote has “historically forced Texas kids to receive over 70 shots from birth to age 18.”
In 2025, after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revised the CDC’s vaccine recommendations and reconstituted the agency’s vaccine advisory committee, the AAP published its own vaccine schedule that continued recommending vaccines removed from the federal schedule.
The AAP also sued Kennedy and the Department of Health and Human Services, arguing the changes violated federal law.
A federal judge blocked portions of Kennedy’s changes, allowing the previous CDC recommendations to remain in effect while the litigation proceeds.
According to Paxton’s office, the AAP’s largest corporate donors are pharmaceutical companies that would suffer financially if fewer vaccines are recommended.
“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,” said the attorney general.
Paxton said his newest investigation seeks to determine how the AAP develops its vaccine recommendations and whether financial relationships influenced the guidance.
“My office will fight to protect kids’ health and uphold transparency in the medical industry alongside President Trump and Secretary Kennedy,” Paxton added.
