{"id":11173,"date":"2026-01-07T19:44:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11173"},"modified":"2026-01-07T19:44:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:44:45","slug":"rfk-jr-guts-the-us-childhood-vaccine-schedule-despite-its-decades-long-safety-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/01\/07\/rfk-jr-guts-the-us-childhood-vaccine-schedule-despite-its-decades-long-safety-record\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. guts the US childhood vaccine schedule despite its\u00a0decades-long\u00a0safety\u00a0record"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/rfk-jr-guts-the-us-childhood-vaccine-schedule-despite-its-decades-long-safety-record-272788\">The Conversation<\/a> The Trump administration\u2019s overhauling of the decades-old childhood vaccination schedule,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/decision-memo-adopting-revised-childhood-adolescent-immunization-schedule.pdf\">announced by federal health officials on Jan. 5, 2026<\/a>, has raised alarm among public health experts and pediatricians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uptodate.com\/contents\/image?imageKey=PI%2F60399\">childhood immunization schedule<\/a>, 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&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/preview\/mmwrhtml\/00039897.htm\">first issued a unified national standard<\/a>, though new vaccines have been added regularly as science advanced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That schedule is now being dismantled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In all, the sweeping change&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/childhood-vaccines\/hhs-announces-unprecedented-overhaul-us-childhood-vaccine-schedule#:%7E:text=Federal%20officials%20today%20announced%20an,director%2C%20Jim%20O'Neill.\">reduces the universally recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11<\/a>. It moves vaccines against rotavirus, influenza, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and meningococcal disease from routine recommendations to \u201cshared clinical decision-making,\u201d a category that shifts responsibility for initiating vaccination from the health care system to individual families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/04\/us\/politics\/rfk-vaccines-hhs-trump.html\">cast doubt on vaccine safety for decades<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/assessment-of-the-us-childhood-and-adolescent-immunization-schedule-compared-to-other-countries.pdf\">justified these changes by citing a 33-page assessment<\/a>&nbsp;comparing&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2025\/07\/hhs-vaccine-policy-europe-denmark\/683640\/\">the U.S. schedule to Denmark\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"i NYZcaFyedUZ gF hfVqmQtK\"><!-- i NYZcaFyedUZ gF hfVqmQtK --><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation The Trump administration\u2019s overhauling of the decades-old childhood vaccination schedule,&nbsp;announced by federal health officials on Jan. 5, 2026, has raised alarm among public health experts and pediatricians. The U.S.&nbsp;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-policy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11174,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions\/11174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}