What are parents to do as doctors clash with Trump administration over vaccines?

It’s normal for parents, or anyone, to have questions about vaccinations — but what if your pediatrician recommends a shot that’s under attack by the Trump administration?

It’s becoming increasingly likely: The nation’s leading doctors’ groups are in an unprecedented standoff with federal health officials who have attacked long-used lifesaving vaccines.

The revolt by pediatricians, obstetricians, family doctors, infectious disease experts and internists came to a head when an advisory committee hand-picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for an end to routine vaccination of newborns against hepatitis B, a virus that can cause liver failure or liver cancer.

The vaccine saves lives, has helped plummet childhood infections and has been safely given to tens of millions of children in the United States alone, say the American Academy of Pediatrics and other doctors’ groups who pledged Tuesday to continue recommending it.

But that’s not the only difference. This advisory committee on immunization practices is currently examining possible changes to the overall childhood immunization schedule, questioning certain ingredients and the number of doses young people receive.

Stepping back, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its own recommendations for young people. Other medical groups — as well as some city and state public health departments that have banded together — also issue their own guidance on certain vaccines, which largely mirrors pre-2025 federal guidelines.

“We owe our patients a consistent message, informed by evidence and lived experiences, not messages biased by political imperatives,” Dr. Ronald Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said Tuesday.

But Nahass acknowledged the inevitable consumer confusion, recounting how a parent called him last weekend for advice on getting her new grandbaby vaccinated against hepatitis B.

“Most Americans don’t have a Cousin Ronnie to call. They are left alone with fear and distrust,” he said, urging parents to talk about vaccines with their doctors.

New guidelines without new data worry doctors

Hepatitis B is not the only vaccination challenge. The Kennedy Health Department recently edited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web page to contradict the long-standing scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. Federal agencies have also moved to restrict COVID-19 vaccinations this fall and are planning policy changes that could restrict future flu and coronavirus vaccines.

But when it comes to vaccine advice, “for decades, ACIP has been the gold standard,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Stanford University.

The panel once regularly called on specialists in specific diseases for lengthy deliberations on the latest science and safety data, resulting in recommendations generally adopted not only by the CDC but by the medical field as a whole, he said.

Last week’s meeting of Kennedy’s panel, which includes vaccine skeptics, marked a sea change. CDC specialists were not allowed to present data on hepatitis B, childhood vaccination schedules or questions about vaccine ingredients. Few committee members have public health experience, and some expressed confusion about the group’s proposals.

At one point, a doctor called to say the panel was misrepresenting its study results. And the committee chairman questioned why one dose of yellow fever vaccine protected him during a trip to Africa while American children received three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine is designed to protect children for life against a virus they can encounter anywhere, not just while traveling abroad. And other scientists noted that it had been carefully studied for years to prove that the three-dose treatment provided decades of immunity — evidence that a single dose simply does not have.

“If they have new data, I’m all for it — let’s see it and discuss it,” said Dr. Kelly Gebo, an infectious disease specialist and dean of public health at George Washington University, who has been monitoring this. “I haven’t seen any new data”, so she is not changing her advice on vaccination.

Committee members argued that the risk of hepatitis B infection in most babies is very low and that previous research on the safety of injections in infants was inadequate.

Particularly unusual was the presentation by a lawyer who expressed doubts about studies proving the benefits of several childhood vaccines and encouraged discredited research pointing to their harms.

“I don’t think at any time in the history of the committee has there been an uninterrupted 90-minute presentation by someone who wasn’t a doctor, a scientist or a public health expert on the subject — much less someone who makes their living in vaccine litigation,” said Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy expert at Yale University.

By abandoning data and the consensus of primary care physicians, ACIP is “actively burning away the credibility that made its recommendations so powerful,” Stanford’s Scott added. “Most parents will continue to follow their pediatricians, and the AAP holds the line here. But mixed messages are precisely what erodes trust over time.”

Parents already have a choice: they need solid advice

Trump administration health officials say it’s important to give choice back to parents and avoid mandates. This is how the recommendation of the committee on hepatitis B was formulated: that parents who really wish to can have their children vaccinated later.

Parents already have a choice, said Dr. Aaron Milstone of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The government makes recommendations at the population level while families and their doctors tailor their choices to each person’s health needs.

But many doctors don’t — or can’t — do their own thorough scientific review of vaccines and so have relied on information from the ACIP and CDC, noted Yale’s Schwartz.

They “rely on trusted expert voices to help them navigate what is, even at the best of times, a complex landscape when it comes to the evidence for vaccines and how best to use them,” he said.

It’s a role that pediatricians and other physician groups, as well as these multistate collaborations, aim to fill with their own guidelines — while recognizing that it will be an enormous task.

For now, “ask your questions, share your concerns and let’s talk,” said Dr. Sarah Nosal of the American Academy of Family Physicians, urging anyone with questions about vaccines to have an open conversation with their doctor.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Education Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.