Pennsylvania medical experts fear vaccination rates will wane after federal health officials issued a nonbinding, but possibly influential, recommendation Monday that kids get fewer shots.
Jim O’Neill, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, slashed the number of shots all children should receive to 11 from 17. Doctors and public health specialists who spoke with TribLive said the move lacked a scientific basis.
“What these changes do is to sow doubt about the vaccines so that people who are on the fence will be less likely to take them,” said Dr. Patrick Brennan, chief medical officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “It’s all designed to reduce vaccine uptake.”
This sudden shift away from scientific consensus comes after President Donald Trump asked the Department of Health and Human Services in December to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising its guidance accordingly.
Now, families may have a harder time getting accurate information on vaccines, warned Dr. Amesh Adalja, a Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert.
“And for pediatricians and primary care providers, it’s going to increase their workload, because they have to do a lot of explaining to help their patients navigate this mess,” said Adalja, who is also a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University.
O’Neill’s decision ended universal recommendations for six shots — hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease, rotavirus, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus. They should now be given only to high-risk children, federal health officials say.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still says all children should get immunized against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox and human papillomavirus.
Parents who want their children to get vaccines set aside for only high-risk kids can still do so.
“All vaccines currently recommended by CDC will remain covered by insurance without cost sharing,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a statement. “No family will lose access.”
This includes families reliant on Medicaid as well as the Children’s Health Insurance and Vaccines for Children programs, O’Neill specified in a memo.
In a social media post, Gov. Josh Shapiro accused Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of “trying to sow chaos and confusion among parents.”
The governor said vaccine availability in Pennsylvania is unaffected by the change in federal guidance, adding his administration will continue to rely on advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The organization calls for several more vaccinations than the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Access could change, though. Insurance companies are mandated to cover vaccines only in whatever capacity they’re federally recommended, according to state Rep. Arvind Venkat, a McCandless Democrat and longtime emergency physician.
“There’s nothing stopping insurance companies on their own accord saying, ‘we’re going to change what we cover to align with these irrational recommendations from the CDC,” Venkat said.
Experts also took issue with the justifications for shrinking the schedule cited by Kennedy, O’Neill, Oz and other Trump administration officials who fall under the “Make America Healthy Again” banner.
Kennedy previously made clear his desire to imitate Denmark’s 10-vaccine schedule. The new recommendations stop one shot short of that, but Kennedy declared mission accomplished in a press release when it comes to aligning vaccine guidelines “with international consensus.”
Denmark, with just over 6 million people and a robust universal health care system, faces significantly different public health challenges than the U.S., Venkat noted.
Many of the 20 peer nations reviewed by the Department of Health and Human Services recommend fewer vaccines but “achieve strong child health outcomes and maintain high vaccination rates through public trust and education rather than mandates,” officials said.
Until Monday, the American schedule was viewed as the “gold standard,” said Brennan, the University of Pennsylvania doctor. His interpretation stands in stark contrast to that of federal health officials, who said the U.S. had been a “global outlier.”
The United Kingdom and Germany were actually in the process of amending their schedules to better match that of the U.S., according to Venkat.
With the vaccine schedule remade, many doctors may look to alternative sources for guidance on which shots to give and when — if they weren’t already after months of vaccine-skeptical actions from the Trump administration.
Allegheny Health Network said its pediatric institute encourages all children to be vaccinated in line with American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations.
Patients should consult with their health care providers to make informed, individualized decisions about vaccinations, said Nikki Buccina, an Allegheny Health Network spokeswoman.
UPMC did not immediately return a request for comment.
Independence Health System declined to comment.
