Pediatricians urge Americans to stick with vaccine schedule

For decades, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have spoken with one voice in advising families across the country on when to vaccinate their children.

Since 1995, the two organizations have worked together to publish a single immunization schedule for parents and health care providers, clearly defining which vaccines children should receive and exactly when they should receive them.

Today, this united front has fractured. This month, the Department of Health and Social Services announced radical changes to the CDC’s vaccination schedule, reducing the number of diseases it recommends U.S. children be routinely vaccinated against from 17 to 11. This follows the CDC’s decision last year to reverse its recommendation that all children receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

On Monday, the AAP released its own vaccination guidelineswhich are now very different from those of the federal government. The organization, which represents most of the nation’s children’s primary care and specialty doctors, recommends that children continue to be routinely vaccinated against 18 diseases, just as the CDC did before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over the nation’s health agencies.

Endorsed by a dozen medical groups, the AAP calendar is by far the preferred version of most healthcare professionals. California Department of Public Health recommended that families and doctors follow the AAP schedule.

“As there is a lot of confusion with the constant new recommendations coming from the federal government, it is important that we have a stable, reliable, evidence-based vaccination schedule to follow and that is the AAP schedule,” said Dr. Pia Pannarajmember of the AAP Infectious Diseases Committee and professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego.

Both programs recommend that all children be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, polio, whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus (HPV), and varicella (better known as chickenpox).

The AAP also urges families to routinely vaccinate their children against hepatitis A and B, COVID-19, rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

The CDC, in contrast, now says these shots are optional for most children, although it still recommends them for those in certain high-risk groups.

Schedules also vary in the recommended timing of certain plans. The AAP advises children to receive two doses of the HPV vaccine between ages 9 and 12, while the CDC recommends one dose at ages 11 or 12. The AAP advocates starting the vaccine earlier because younger immune systems produce more antibodies. Although several recent studies have shown that a single dose of vaccine provides as much protection as two, there is not yet a single-dose HPV vaccine licensed in the United States.

The group of pediatricians also continues to recommend the long-standing practice of a single-shot combination of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and chickenpox vaccines to limit the number of vaccines children receive. In September, a key CDC advisory committee of hand-picked Kennedy appointees recommended that the MMR and chickenpox vaccines be administered in separate dosesa decision that has baffled public health experts due to its apparent lack of scientific basis.

The AAP is one of several medical groups sue HHS. The AAP lawsuit calls Kennedy’s changes to the nation’s vaccine policy “arbitrary and capricious,” most of which were made without the thorough scientific review that preceded the changes.

Days before the AAP released its new guidance, it faced a lawsuit from Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded and previously led by Kennedy, alleging that its vaccine guidance over the years amounted to a form of racketeering.

The CDC’s efforts to collect the data that typically informs public health policy have slowed noticeably under Kennedy’s leadership at HHS. A goodbye released Monday found that of 82 CDC databases previously updated at least monthly, 38 had unexplained interruptionsmost of these breaks lasting six months or more. Nearly 90% of suspended databases contained information on vaccination.

“The evidence is overwhelming: the administration’s anti-vaccine stance has disrupted the reliable flow of data we need to protect Americans from preventable infections,” Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo wrote in a statement. editorial for Annals of Internal Medicine, a scientific journal. Marrazzo, an infectious disease specialist, was licensed last year as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, after speaking out against the administration’s public health policies.