The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has canceled millions of dollars in grants awarded to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the department said on Dec. 17, hours after the academy appeared in court to challenge the agency in a lawsuit.

“These grants, previously awarded to the American Academy of Pediatrics, were canceled along with a number of other grants to other organizations because they no longer align with the Department’s mission or priorities,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told The Epoch Times in an email.

When asked for more details, Nixon pointed to several webpages outlining priorities. One, an HHS page, lists a variety of goals, including furthering understanding of autism and supporting services for people with serious mental illness.

The AAP, which says it represents 67,000 pediatricians, said in a statement that the canceled grants had supported programs aimed at reducing sudden infant death, early detection of autism, improving mental health and rural health care access, and preventing fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

Three canceled grants were from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and four were from the Health Resources and Services Administration, both of which are part of HHS.

“The sudden withdrawal of these funds will directly impact and potentially harm infants, children, youth, and their families in communities across the United States,” AAP CEO Mark Del Monte said. The AAP is assessing its options, including legal recourse.

The AAP has received $18.4 million in federal funding from HHS so far in 2025, according to government records.

Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, which Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chaired through 2023, said in a statement that “the AAP has presided over the worst decline in children’s health in American history” and “their defunding is necessary and appropriate.”

Dr. Joel Warsh, a pediatrician in California, wrote in a post on X that “you don’t sue your funding authority, publicly undermine their legitimacy, and then expect business as usual.”

“If the goal is protecting children, the answer was always conversation, not confrontation,” he added.

Dr. Leonard Banco, another pediatrician, said in a post on Blue Sky that he supports what the AAP has been doing.

“We all have to bear the consequences of doing the right thing,” he said.

The AAP has been a critic of the Trump administration’s health actions, including its promotion of a drug called leucovorin for autism. After the CDC narrowed its COVID-19 vaccine recommendations on Kennedy’s orders, the AAP said most people should still be vaccinated, including all children aged 6 months to 23 months.

Kennedy responded in August by referencing how the AAP’s partners include vaccine manufacturers Merck, Moderna, and Pfizer. He questioned whether the “corporate-friendly vaccine recommendations” were an example of “a pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of AAP’s Big Pharma benefactors.”

The AAP and other doctor groups also sued over Kennedy’s orders, alleging they were arbitrary and capricious in contravention of federal law. The suit has been expanded to challenge how Kennedy replaced all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC on vaccines.

Lawyers for the groups and the government argued for and against judicial action in the case in a federal courtroom in Boston on Dec. 17.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said he expects to issue a ruling in January.

Reuters contributed to this report.