More than a dozen states, including California, sued the Trump administration over its rollback of vaccine recommendations for children, calling the move an illegal threat to public health.

The states argue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put children’s lives at risk when it announced last month that it would stop recommending all children get immunized against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. Under the new guidance, which was met with criticism from medical experts, protections against those diseases are recommended only for certain groups deemed high risk or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making.”

The new vaccine recommendations ignore longstanding medical guidance and will make states have to spend more to protect against outbreaks, the states, including Arizona and California, said.

“The health and safety of children across the country is not a political issue,” the Arizona attorney general, Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said at a Tuesday news conference. “It is not a culture war talking point.”

Emily G Hilliard, press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, blasted the complaint as a “publicity stunt dressed up as a lawsuit”.

The lawsuit escalates an ongoing battle between Democratic-led states and the Trump administration over the federal government’s changes to public health policy under the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers at federal public health agencies, cut funding for scientific research, and altered government guidance on fluoride and other topics.

Kennedy last year ousted every member of a vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with his own picks, which Tuesday’s complaint alleges was unlawful.

The lawsuit comes months after the Democratic governors of California, Washington state and Oregon launched an alliance to establish their own vaccine recommendations. The governors said the Trump administration was risking people’s health by politicizing the CDC.

States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren, though the CDC’s requirements typically influence state regulations.