The entire U.S. childhood vaccination schedule is now open to scrutiny after government vaccine advisers began discussing the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and their components and changed their recommendations on one important preventative measure, experts say.
Some of the vaccine advisers are longtime anti-vaccine activists, all of whom were chosen by Donald Trump's controversial health secretary Robert F. Kennedy after he fired previous advisers in an unprecedented move to introduce sweeping changes to U.S. vaccination policy. Kennedy was a frequent critic of vaccines.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) makes recommendations to the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who decides whether official policy should be changed. The recommendations also have a huge impact on policy and coverage at the state level. Some states have laws based on ACIP recommendations.
The panel's landmark vote to change hepatitis B guidelines will create confusion and access problems for families, and questions about routine vaccines more broadly point to a troubling trend, experts say.
“What happened today is really very devastating,” said Susan Wang, a pediatrician and former director of the Division of Perinatal Hepatitis B Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “It also lays the groundwork for the destruction of the rest of the childhood immunization schedule.”
Robert Malone, vice chairman of ACIP and an outspoken critic of vaccines, expressed doubts about the vaccination schedule on Friday, calling it the “elephant in the room.”
“A particular elephant in this case is associated with a cumulative risk across the entire childhood vaccination schedule – and this is a risk for which we do not have sufficient data,” he said. Vaccines have been administered safely to children for decades with no known risks. according to at the CDC.
Malone and other consultants also targeted aluminum adjuvants, which help vaccines work effectively, and numerous studies have shown that they safe.
Aaron Seery, a lawyer who is currently involved in several lawsuits against the US government over vaccines, presented a selective history of vaccine trials for 90 minutes and questioned the long-term effects of vaccination, arguing, without evidence, that some effects may not appear for years.
“What you said is a terrible, terrible misrepresentation of all the facts,” said Cody Meisner, a consultant and professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth College's Geisel School of Medicine, sharply criticizing Siri's presentation.
Siri also said that Paul Offit and Peter Hotez, renowned vaccine experts, were invited but chose not to attend the meeting with him.
Offit, reached by phone, said he was “never contacted” about speaking to ACIP. But, he says, he would refuse.
“It's not ACIP anymore. It's an anti-vaccine organization,” he said. He pointed to previous decisions to limit the use of flu vaccines containing thimerosal and Covid vaccines in vulnerable populations as unscientific decisions.
The hepatitis B decision is a serious mistake, he said. The virus lives on surfaces for up to a week, causing concern for anyone who comes into contact with it, but young children are especially vulnerable to long-term illness and death.
“I have no doubt that it shortens children's lives. Why should I be a part of it?” Offit said. “It's a travesty of healthcare. It's a clown show.”
Recommending new restrictions on existing vaccines without any evidence of harm means any vaccine is now up for debate, he said.
For Rakshi Raheja, the committee's decisions are professional and personal. She is a pediatrician whose child has cancer.
She said worsening access to and confidence in vaccines puts her immunocompromised son at greater risk.
after promoting the newsletter
“When enough people in a community are vaccinated, it protects those who cannot get immunized, like my son with cancer,” Raheja said. “As vaccination rates decline, we are putting vulnerable populations at risk and seeing a resurgence of preventable diseases like measles.”
The United States is currently experiencing its worst measles outbreak in three decades; This year, two unvaccinated children and one adult died from measles in the United States. If the outbreak is not contained by mid-January, the United States will lose its measles elimination status.
At the meeting, several speakers and consultants repeated myths and misinformation about the vaccines, including inaccurate claims that they have not been adequately studied or that they cause allergies and autism, links that have been thoroughly debunked by decades of research.
However, the debate over existing vaccines, which have long been proven to be safe and effective, has caused public confidence in vaccines to plummet. start falling.
Vicky Pebsworth, consultant and nurse they say he was “Anti-vaccination longer than RFK” appeared to argue Thursday that the hepatitis vaccine should not be given because the virus has a low prevalence in the U.S. — but that decline in prevalence is largely due to “newborn vaccination efforts,” said Kevin Ault, an obstetrician and gynecologist and former ACIP member.
Despite this, 2 million people in the United States have hepatitis B, indicating the need to continue the vaccination program, Ault said. Stopping or impeding widespread vaccination will lead to an increase in disease incidence, he added.
Insurers are required to cover vaccines recommended in the childhood immunization schedule, although they may also cover additional immunizations. The federal Vaccines for Children program covers more than half of children (52%) in the United States and must follow ACIP recommendations.
Changing vaccination recommendations “will lead to a lot of confusion among parents,” Wang said.
In recent weeks, she has cared for several children who became ill and were completely unvaccinated.
“Mothers say they are not against vaccines, but they are concerned about safety, they are not sure which ones to give their children, and they need to do their own research,” Wang said.
She said falling vaccination rates don't just pose a danger to children who are not protected by vaccines – it makes preventable diseases an even greater threat to everyone. “You're going to have to worry about things that we haven't had to worry about in the past.”
