The Conversation The Trump administration’s overhauling of the decades-old childhood vaccination schedule, announced by federal health officials on Jan. 5, 2026, has raised alarm among public health experts and pediatricians.
The U.S. childhood immunization schedule, the grid of colored bars pediatricians share with parents, recommends a set of vaccines given from birth through adolescence to prevent a range of serious infections. The basic structure has been in place since 1995, when federal health officials and medical organizations first issued a unified national standard, though new vaccines have been added regularly as science advanced.
That schedule is now being dismantled.
In all, the sweeping change reduces the universally recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11. It moves vaccines against rotavirus, influenza, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and meningococcal disease from routine recommendations to “shared clinical decision-making,” a category that shifts responsibility for initiating vaccination from the health care system to individual families.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has cast doubt on vaccine safety for decades, justified these changes by citing a 33-page assessment comparing the U.S. schedule to Denmark’s.