Critics speak out against CDC’s new childhood vaccine policy

The CDC announced on Monday that they have reduced the number of required childhood vaccines from 17 to 11. Critics of this move have started to raise concerns about the implications that this decision may have on public health, worrying children will be put at an unnecessary risk of preventable disease, while proponents of the decision are seeing this as a healthcare policy win against vaccine overload.

“This decision protects children, respects families and rebuilds trust in public health,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, said in the CDC news release.

Childhood vaccines have been a controversial topic for years and have taken up more of the spotlight recently thanks in part to Kennedy, regarded by many as a longtime vaccine skeptic.

In the last 30 years, the vaccines for hepatitis A, hepatitis B and rotavirus alone have prevented nearly 2 million hospitalizations and more than 90,000 deaths, according to CDC data. All currently recommended vaccines will still be covered by insurance without cost sharing.

Monday’s decision was made as the result of a presidential memorandum in which President Trump ordered the Secretary of HHS and the Acting Director of the CDC to examine how other nations structure their childhood vaccine policy. Denmark, which has one of the laxest schedules among developed nations, was chosen as the reference model for the new guidelines. Denmark currently recommends only 10 of the 17 previously recommended vaccines in the United States. The only difference is that the CDC still recommends all children receive a chickenpox vaccine, unlike in Denmark.

“We don’t follow Denmark’s vaccine recommendations because we don’t live in Denmark,” Jose Romero, M.D., FAAP, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. “Children in the United States are at risk of different diseases than children in other countries. We also have a completely different health system. The bottom line is vaccine recommendations in the United States are designed to help children resist serious illnesses so they can stay healthy and our communities can stay healthy."

The CDC still recommends vaccines for:

• diphtheria
• tetanus
• acellular pertussis (whooping cough)
• Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib)
• pneumococcal conjugate
• polio
• measles
• mumps
• rubella
• human papillomavirus (HPV)
• varicella (chickenpox)

The following vaccines are no longer recommended broadly but instead should be given based on “shared clinical decision-making” between the healthcare provider and the child’s parent/guardian:

• hepatitis B
• respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
• rotavirus
• hepatitis A
• meningococcus
• influenza
• COVID-19

While the latter list is no longer recommended generally, the CDC does recommend that “high-risk” children should be vaccinated against:

• RSV
• hepatitis A
• hepatitis B
• dengue
• two vaccines targeting bacterial meningitis (MenACWY and MenB).

Rotavirus alone is the leading cause of severe gastroenteritis in children younger than age 5. The most common symptoms include diarrhea and vomiting, which can lead to severe dehydration. Prior to the release of the rotavirus vaccine in 2006, up to 70,000 infants and toddlers were hospitalized and as many as 60 died annually in the United States.

“These unjustifiable changes to the vaccination schedule have real consequences that will harm children from preventable illnesses and create unnecessary public health risks for millions of people,” a statement from the American College of Emergency Physicians reads.

“Science demands continuous evaluation,” National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., said in the CDC news release. “This decision commits NIH, CDC, and FDA to gold standard science, greater transparency and ongoing reassessment as new data emerge.”