The US Department of Health and Human Services will recommend fewer vaccines for many American kids, well being officers mentioned Monday.
Health officers will proceed to recommend the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines and immunizations in opposition to polio, chickenpox, HPV and others, however will slender suggestions for vaccination in opposition to the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, meningococcal illness, hepatitis B, and hepatitis A to kids who’re broadly at increased danger for infections.
They will recommend that selections on vaccinations in opposition to flu, Covid-19 and rotavirus be primarily based on “shared clinical decision making,” which implies individuals who need one should seek the advice of with a well being care supplier.
The proposed modifications come amid a sharp increase in flu cases throughout the nation. So far, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 9 pediatric deaths to this point this season.
HHS mentioned that every one insurers will nonetheless cowl these vaccines with out cost-sharing. However the modifications may current new hurdles for folks who want to seek the advice of with medical doctors about immunizations not advisable for wholesome kids.
The new US schedule of childhood vaccines extra intently resemble these of different developed nations similar to Denmark, as NCS reported last month.
Denmark doesn’t at present recommend childhood vaccinations in opposition to rotavirus, hepatitis A, meningococcal, flu, chickenpox, or respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
Health officers initially deliberate to announce the modifications this December, weeks after Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, newly named appearing director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, gave a presentation on the Danish vaccine schedule to a panel of vaccine advisers.
The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices, was reconstituted final yr with a brand new group of members after US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine skeptic, dismissed all earlier appointees.
The overhaul comes one month after President Donald Trump ordered the well being division to evaluation the childhood vaccine schedule.
“It is ridiculous!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social put up this December, following his government order. “That is why I have just signed a Presidential memorandum directing the Department of Health and Human Services to ‘FAST TRACK’ a comprehensive evaluation of Vaccine Schedules from other Countries around the World, and better align the U.S. Vaccine Schedule.”
In a put up on X, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded: “Thank you, Mr. President. We’re on it.”
Several public well being specialists who spoke to NCS warned that the modifications may gasoline outbreaks of preventable ailments.
“I think that a reduced schedule is going to endanger children and lay the groundwork for a resurgence in preventable disease,” mentioned Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Outbreak Response Innovation on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Denmark just isn’t a very good blueprint for US vaccine coverage, mentioned Anders Hviid, who leads vaccine security and effectiveness analysis on the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.
They’re “two very different countries. Public health is not one size fits all,” he instructed NCS in an electronic mail.
In Denmark, “everyone has access to excellent prenatal and childhood care. As I understand it, that is not the case for everyone in the US. Vaccines prevent infections that may have poor outcomes for children who do not have access to good healthcare.”
This is a breaking information story and will be up to date.