Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came within hours of publicly promoting Denmark’s childhood vaccine schedule as an option for American parents — before legal and political concerns got in the way.

A senior HHS official told POLITICO that a press conference set for Friday was canceled at the last minute after the HHS Office of the General Counsel said it would invite a lawsuit the administration could lose.

A second senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the press conference, which HHS had publicly announced, was to be about the Danish schedule. The second official said it was canceled because it was deemed politically risky.

Billed as an “announcement regarding children’s health,” Kennedy was to appear alongside his top agency heads and Tracy Beth Høeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator. Høeg touted the Danish schedule at a vaccine advisory committee meeting earlier this month.

HHS canceled the event Thursday evening, hours after announcing it.

Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, called accounts of the cancellation that didn’t come directly from the department “pure speculation” in a statement.

HHS officials skeptical of moving to the Danish schedule, which recommends immunization for only 10 of the 17 diseases on the U.S. list, were relieved it was never publicly recommended, the first official said. The internal confusion and disagreement follow similar management bungling within HHS’ Food and Drug Administration that has frustrated the White House.

On Dec. 5, President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum titled “Aligning United States Core Childhood Vaccine Recommendations with Best Practices from Peer, Developed Countries.” The memorandum directed HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of its subagencies that sets the vaccine schedule, to review peer-country best practices for vaccines recommended for all children and, if those practices were judged superior, to update the U.S. schedule while preserving access to vaccines already available. In the memorandum, Trump mentioned Denmark, Japan and Germany as examples of countries that recommend fewer shots than the U.S.

According to the first official, Kennedy and his top aide, Stefanie Spear, helped sell the peer-country framing to West Wing officials as the clearest way to turn internal vaccine skepticism into a signed White House directive. Spear is Kennedy’s principal deputy chief of staff and senior counselor.

Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic who believes the U.S. schedule has grown too quickly, has not been tested in its entirety for adverse effects, and is a likely cause of rising autism rates. Numerous studies have not found a link between vaccines and the neurological disorder that now affects one in 31 U.S. children, up from one in 150 two decades ago.

Experts in the condition, which affects the ability to communicate, say expanded diagnostic criteria and awareness are responsible for most of that rise. The condition’s cause is usually genetic, they believe, but researchers are studying possible environmental causes.

HHS has made it a priority to learn more about what causes autism and why diagnoses are rising. The department’s research arm, the National Institutes of Health, announced an Autism Data Science Initiative on May 27 and has awarded around $50 million to fund 13 projects investigating potential causes.

In April, Kennedy promised to reveal autism’s cause in September, but HHS later said it would reveal preliminary findings early next year. Autism researchers, who have studied the condition for years, have called that unrealistic.

The first indication Kennedy might be considering the slimmer Danish schedule, which excludes vaccines for chickenpox, the flu, hepatitis A and B, meningitis, respiratory syncytial virus and rotavirus, came earlier this month during the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting in Atlanta. Høeg presented a slide deck titled “U.S. vs. Danish Vaccine Schedule,” which the CDC posted among the meeting presentations.

The department then circulated Høeg’s presentation to top officials at HHS, the first senior official said. In the ensuing debate, Høeg’s supporters proposed offering the Danish schedule as a government-recommended alternative to the U.S. one.

The first senior official and two others inside HHS familiar with internal discussions, all of whom were granted anonymity to reveal deliberations they were not authorized to discuss publicly, said proponents of the Danish schedule felt that offering it would help restore trust in vaccines; many Americans were turned off by Covid-era vaccine mandates and claims that Covid shots would halt transmission that turned out to be incorrect, they argued.

The three officials said the view of proponents inside the administration was that the Danish schedule could be pitched as a “reset” that might convince hesitant parents to vaccinate their kids.

Critics inside the administration, the officials said, argued the plan to recommend the Danish schedule was not rigorous and science-based — and that promoting it publicly would invite criticism. Rather than restoring trust, they said it could undermine it by signaling doubt about the need for, and safety of, routine immunization.

Going forward without laying the scientific groundwork or going through normal regulatory processes could also make the department vulnerable to lawsuits, the HHS general counsel’s office argued, according to the first senior official. Mike Stuart, who was a U.S. attorney in West Virginia in Trump’s first term, now is HHS general counsel.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents doctors who care for children, along with other physician and public health groups, has already sued HHS for changes it made earlier this year to Covid vaccine recommendations, saying the department violated rules governing how regulatory changes are made. That case is pending in federal district court in Boston.

HHS has stopped recommending Covid boosters for previously vaccinated people under 65 who are not at high risk of the disease. Instead, the department says Americans should talk to their doctor and make a shared decision.

Carmen Paun contributed to this story.

Tim Röhn is senior editor of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.