What’s the Latest on Childhood Vaccines?
For decades, U.S. parents and caregivers have been able to rely on governmental guidance about when, how, and why to vaccinate children to protect them from dangerous and potentially deadly childhood diseases, such as measles, mumps, diphtheria, polio, whooping cough, flu, and chickenpox.
The system that’s been in place in the U.S. has been effective. According to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study, for children born just between 1994 and 2023, routine childhood immunizations in the U.S. prevented approximately 1.1 million deaths. The same study found that these same vaccinations prevented more than 500 million illnesses and 32 million hospitalizations in the same time period.
“Vaccines teach our immune systems to fight infections in a controlled way, so that we are prepared if and when we encounter them for real. The benefits of vaccinating children include direct protection against a host of illnesses that used to be common but which we have forgotten,” said epidemiologist Bill Hanage, the associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School for Public Health.
“Vaccines can also provide protection to the community, including babies too young to be vaccinated, and the immunocompromised, because children who can’t get infected can’t transmit,” Hanage said.
Before a polio vaccine became available, Hanage said, the U.S. saw more than 16,000 cases of paralysis due to polio every year. When a case occurred in New York during the summer of 2022, he said, it was the first in nearly a decade.
Similarly, measles is one of the most contagious viruses known, said Hanage, adding that in the U.S. before vaccination there could typically be more than 500,000 cases each year. In 2024, there were 266, he said, however there have now been more than 1,200 this year alone already, with those cases overwhelmingly tied to under vaccinated communities.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS’ CONCERNS
Under the U.S. system, vaccine recommendations made to the CDC by medical and scientific experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunology Practices (ACIP) have guided CDC policy as to what vaccines to recommend to the American public. The recommendations also affect whether those vaccines will be covered by insurance.
But this June, Robert F. Kennedy, the Trump-appointed U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, an avowed anti-vaccine proponent, fired all 17 of the experts on the ACIP board, replacing them with eight handpicked new members, several of whom are vaccine critics, including three opponents of the mRNA vaccines that saved hundreds of thousands of lives during the Covid pandemic.
According to The Washington Post, “Some of the more notable [Kennedy] selections include Martin Kulldorff, the co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for herd immunity through mass Covid infection in 2020, and Vicky Pebsworth, who is listed on the board of the nation’s oldest anti-vaccine group.”
The ACIP shakeup has alarmed U.S. professional medical societies, state health officials, vaccine manufacturers and pharmacists who are concerned that the nation’s health care system “is being politicized at the expense of children’s health,” according to Dr. Sue Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP.)
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a letter to Kennedy, said the ACIP panel’s new members “include vaccine skeptics, medical professionals with conflicts of interest, and individuals without any apparent experience conducting studies of vaccines, counseling patients about vaccines, or administering vaccines.”
“As presently constituted,” Warren wrote, “the committee lacks the qualifications and credibility to offer the nation credible advice on vaccines.”
As a result of these developments, established medical and scientific groups are mobilizing to preserve the nation’s access to reliable and objective vaccine information by issuing their own guidelines.
On June 25, Kressly issued a statement saying that because the ACIP system “is no longer a credible process,” the American Academy of Pediatrics will continue to provide guidance for parents, regardless of what the Trump administration decides to do going forward.
“The AAP will continue to publish our own immunization schedule, just as we always have,” Kressly said in a videotaped announcement posted on the AAP website.
“Developed by experts, guided by science, trusted by pediatricians and families across the country, you can trust the AAP will not compromise on science or the health of the children and families we serve,” she said.
The APP’s recommendations include guidance on vaccines your child needs by age 6, schedules of vaccines from birth to age 6, vaccines for tweens to young adults, and recommended vaccine schedules for that older age group.
According to the AAP, its schedule “is considered the ideal schedule for healthy children.”
The AAP says there are a very few, rare exceptions to its schedule.
“For example, if a child has a chronic condition or takes medicine that weakens their immune system, they may need a booster dose or a different type of vaccine.” The AAP said a child’s pediatrician can discuss what approach is best.
A number of other groups, including the American College of Physicians , the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine websites are also providing evidence-based resources to help patients make decisions grounded in facts.
HealthyChildren.org, a website sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics, provides information on vaccines children need to have by age 6. It also includes vaccination schedules for “tweens” and young adults.
LEGAL CHALLENGE
Saying their aim is “to defend vaccine policy, and to put an end to [Kennedy’s] assault on science, public health and evidence-based medicine,” on July 7 a consortium of medical groups filed suit in American Academy of Pediatrics v. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, according to an American College of Physicians (ACP) news release.
They are suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Kennedy for “acting arbitrarily and capriciously when he unilaterally changed Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant people.”
The groups who are suing include the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American College of Physicians (ACP), American Public Health Association (APHA), Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), Massachusetts Public Health Alliance (MPHA), Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), and a pregnant physician.
The lawsuit also claims that “… Kennedy has also unjustly dismissed 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and appointed replacements who have historically espoused anti-vaccine viewpoints. This committee has proceeded to undermine the science behind vaccine recommendations.”
Their lawsuit asks for preliminary and permanent injunctions to enjoin Kennedy’s rescissions of Covid vaccine recommendations and a declaratory judgment pronouncing the change in recommendations as unlawful.
“This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started. If left unchecked, Secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation’s children,” said Richard H. Hughes IV, lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
A number of established medical organizations are urging parents and patients to follow the vaccine guidance of qualified medical professionals.
STATE PLANS
In June, Massachusetts’ Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein indicated in a published report that in Massachusetts “we are well positioned to respond and maintain access to vaccines across the state.”
According to the report, Goldstein said his department is investigating how the state will maintain access and purchasing ability for vaccines.
“We are making sure that, no matter what happens at the federal level, we will continue to be able to purchase vaccines here in Massachusetts, distribute them across the Commonwealth, and make sure there’s access in pediatrics practices, community health centers, and hospitals all across the state,” Goldstein said.
“Right now there are no significant changes to vaccine recommendations and no restriction in access to vaccines in Massachusetts,” said Angela Fowler, associate medical director for Vaccine Preventable Diseases in the Bureau of Infectious Diseases and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in an email.
She added that school and camp vaccine requirements remain the same.
Fowler said proposed Massachusetts legislation would give the Massachusetts DPH the authority to recommend childhood vaccines be covered by the Vaccine Purchase Trust Fund, rather than relying on federal guidance.
This is good, Fowler said, because “if a vaccine is no longer recommended by the ACIP for children, if MDPH continues to recommend the vaccine, the [fund] can continue to purchase and distribute the vaccine for children.”
She said Massachusetts is working closely with other states in the Northeast U.S. on various contingency plans “to ensure federal actions do not impact access to vaccines in our respective states.”
In the U.S., individual states determine school vaccine entry requirements. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health publishes the state’s school and camp vaccine requirements on its website. It states that, “While MDPH outlines the required vaccines, local school districts are responsible for ensuring compliance to the stated requirements.”
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance (MPHA) said it will work with public health allies to mitigate the consequences of Kennedy’s ACIP reorganization as well as his announcement that the CDC would no longer recommend Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant individuals.
“MPHA is deeply troubled by Secretary Kennedy’s recent directive, which destroys public confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines to the detriment of the public’s health,” said Carlene Pavlos, MPHA executive director.
“Vaccines are one of the greatest achievements of biomedical science and public health, preventing enormous suffering and premature death,” Pavlos said.
“Decades of strategic vaccination campaigns virtually eliminated diseases previously common in the U.S., and recent COVID-19 vaccinations are estimated to have saved nearly 20 million lives globally,” Pavlos said.
“Secretary Kennedy’s actions are not only dangerous for pregnant women and children, but they also represent a retreat from 60+ years of evidence-based health policy,” she added.
Written by: M.R.F. Buckley
