vaccine

Jan. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday announced that it is changing its childhood vaccination schedule to align with other developed nations.

The change, which is based on the vaccine practices in 20 “peer, developed nations,” most specifically Denmark, is aimed at reducing the number of vaccines and vaccine doses that children in the United States receive based on what officials at the Department of Health and Human Services say is too high a count of shots.

“After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said in a press release.

“This decision protects children, respects families and rebuilds trust in public health,” he said.

The change was met with concern by a range of professional healthcare societies, including the American Association of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

“Today’s announcement by federal health officials to arbitrarilly stop recommending numerous routine childhood immunizations is dangerous and unnecessary,” Andrew D. Racine, president of the AAP, said in a statement.

“The longstanding, evidence-based approach that has guided the U.S. immunization review and recommendation process remains the best way to keep children healthy and protect against health complications and hospitalizations,” Racine said.

Kennedy has long been associated with anti-vaccine sentiments, including the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism and doubts expressed about COVID-19 vaccines that disregard study and real-world data.

Although he told Congress during his confirmation hearing in January 2025 that he is not anti-vaccine, since taking over the HHS he has canceled several vaccine research programs at the CDC and Food and Drug Administration and fired a wide range of experts who have long worked on vaccines and vaccine policy amid what he has said is an effort to rebuild citizens’ trust in government health agencies and the advice they offer.

Among Kennedy’s actions was firing all 17 members of a committee that makes recommendations about vaccines to the CDC and replacing them with a hand-picked selection of vaccine skeptics.

Kennedy last February said he was going to make investigating the benefits of the childhood vaccine schedule a priority, noting that he would take an “open mind” to what many consider “settled science” for vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B and other infectious diseases.

According to the HHS, the CDC will continue to recommend that all are children receive vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, Haemophilus influenza B, pneumococcus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, HPV and chickenpox.

Vaccines that the agency is recommending for high-risk groups are RSV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, dengue and meningococcus.

And the CDC is now recommending that vaccines for rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B are given based on shared clinical decision-making.

The HHS and the CDC said the changes are based on the United States recommending more childhood vaccine doses than any other peer nation, and twice as many as some European nations, and that data is insufficient to suggest the formerly recommended shots are necessary.

The agencies also said that the new schedule allows for more flexibility and choice, with less coercion.

Experts have expressed doubt about the need or benefits for the changes, saying that there is not data to back up the changes and they will potentially lead to the spread of diseases that can be prevented.

Amesh Adalja, physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told UPI that the effect of the changes, which he called intentional, will be to decrease the uptake of certain vaccines in the United States and that there is no scientific justification for them.

“This will lead to predictable increases in illness, disruption, hospitalizations and — with certain infections — deaths,” Adalja said. “Individuals will be confused regarding what is actually recommended.”

He said that the burden on primary care doctors will increase as they not only help their patients navigate issues and decisions, but will likely increase the care that some people need.

“The decision was entirely arbitrary because some people ‘felt’ that the number of diseases vaccinated against was too high, akin to those who are afraid of the numbers 13 or 666,” Adalja said.

WASHINGTON — In the whirlwind first year of President Trump’s second term, some of the most polarizing changes have taken place within the Department of Health and Human Services, where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has openly rebuffed the medical establishment as he converts the ideas of his Make America Healthy Again movement into public policy.

Since entering office in February, the Health secretary has overseen a dramatic reshaping of the agencies he oversees, including eliminating thousands of jobs and freezing or canceling billions of dollars for scientific research. As part of his campaign against chronic disease, he has redrawn the government’s position on topics such as seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol. He also has repeatedly used his authority to promote discredited ideas about vaccines.

The department’s rapid transformation has garnered praise from MAHA supporters who say they long viewed Health and Human Services as corrupt and untrustworthy and have been waiting for such a disruption. And both Democrats and Republicans have applauded some of the agency’s actions, including efforts to encourage healthy eating and exercise, and deals to lower the prices of costly drugs.

But many of the drastic changes Kennedy has led at the department are raising grave concerns among doctors and public health experts.

“At least in the immediate or intermediate future, the United States is going to be hobbled and hollowed out in its scientific leadership,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor who was removed from a National Institutes of Health advisory board this year with a letter that said he was no longer needed. “I think it will be extraordinarily difficult to reverse all the damage.”

Department spokesperson Andrew Nixon denied any threat to scientific expertise at the agency and lauded its work.

“In 2025, the Department confronted long-standing public health challenges with transparency, courage, and gold-standard science,” Nixon said in a statement. “HHS will carry this momentum into 2026 to strengthen accountability, put patients first, and protect public health.”

The overhaul comes alongside broader uncertainties in the nation’s health system, including Medicaid cuts passed by Congress this year and expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies that are putting millions of Americans’ insurance coverage in jeopardy.

Here’s a closer look at Kennedy’s first year leading the nation’s health agency:

Kennedy’s vaccine views ripple across the department

After many years spent publicly assailing vaccines, Kennedy sought during his confirmation process to reassure senators he wouldn’t take a wrecking ball to vaccine science. But less than a year later, his Health Department has repeatedly pushed the limits of those commitments.

In May, Kennedy announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women — a move immediately questioned by public health experts who saw no new data to justify the change.

In June, Kennedy fired an entire 17-member CDC vaccine advisory committee — later installing several of his own replacements, including multiple vaccine skeptics.

That group has made decisions that have shocked medical professionals, including declining to recommend COVID-19 shots for anyone, adding new restrictions on a combination shot against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella and reversing the long-standing recommendation that all babies receive a hepatitis B shot at birth.

Kennedy in November also personally directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change. Although he left the old language on the agency website to keep a promise he made to Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, he added a disclaimer saying it remained because of the agreement.

Public health researchers and advocates strongly refute the updated website and note that scientists have thoroughly explored the issue in rigorous research spanning decades, all pointing to the same conclusion that vaccines don’t cause autism.

Kennedy has promised a wide-ranging effort to study environmental factors that potentially contribute to autism and in an Oval Office event with Trump in September promoted unproven — and in some cases discredited — ties among Tylenol, vaccines and the complex brain disorder.

Kennedy reconfigures department with massive staffing and research cuts

Within two months of taking office, Kennedy announced a sweeping restructuring of Health and Human Services that would shut down entire agencies, consolidate others into a new one focused on chronic disease and lay off about 10,000 employees on top of 10,000 others who had already taken buyouts.

Although parts of the effort are still tied up in court, thousands of the mass layoffs were allowed to stand. Those and voluntary departures significantly thinned out the sprawling $1.7-trillion department, which oversees food and hospital inspections, health insurance for roughly half of the country and vaccine recommendations.

Kennedy also has fired or forced out several leaders at the department, among them four directors at the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration’s former vaccine chief and a director of the CDC whom he had hired less than a month earlier.

On top of staffing reductions, he has overseen significant cuts to scientific research. That includes the NIH slashing billions of dollars in research projects and the termination of $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology.

Amid the cuts, Kennedy has proposed or funded some new research on topics related to his MAHA goals, including autism, Lyme disease and food additives.

MAHA gains momentum despite some stumbles

Kennedy started using the phrase “MAHA” on the campaign trail last year to describe his crusade against toxic exposures and childhood chronic disease, but 2025 was the year it became ingrained in the national lexicon.

In his tenure so far, the Health secretary has made it the centerpiece of his work, using the MAHA branding to wage war on ultra-processed foods, pressure companies to phase out artificial food dyes, criticize fluoride in drinking water and push to ban junk food from the program that subsidizes grocery store runs for low-income Americans.

The idea has even spread beyond Kennedy’s agency across the federal government.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has appeared with Kennedy to promote fitness with pull-up displays. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy teamed up with Kennedy in early December to announce $1 billion in funding for airports to install resources including playgrounds and nursing pods for mothers and babies. And Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced he is working toward unveiling a MAHA agenda with health-related goals for his own department.

MAHA has earned widespread popularity among the American public — even as it has endured some administration foibles. In May, for example, Health and Human Services faced scrutiny for releasing a MAHA report that contained several citations to studies that didn’t exist.

But to the extent that the initiative has included calls to action that aren’t based on science — such as urging distrust in vaccines or promoting raw milk, which is far more likely than pasteurized milk to lead to illness — critics say it can be dangerous.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.