US plan to phase out some childhood vaccines in line with Denmark would put children at risk, experts say
The United States is reportedly planning to revise the country's childhood vaccination schedule. Experts say the move could set public health back decades.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, has led a movement to change the U.S. vaccination schedule.
Thassos Katopodis/Getty Images
The United States is reportedly planning to revise the country's childhood vaccination schedule. Movement, first reported by CNNwould change the number of vaccines children receive to protect against various diseases and when they receive them.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, longtime vaccine skeptic and supports changing the vaccination schedule. Recommendations for several vaccines currently routinely administered to children in the United States, including rotavirus, varicella, hepatitis A, meningococcal bacteria, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – according to plans, it can be completely written off, CNN reports.
Children's vaccines collectively protect children and the general U.S. population from diseases such as measles and hepatitis B that once sickened, hospitalized or killed hundreds or even thousands of people each year. Currently children in the US recommended vaccines for 18 diseases compared to 10 in Denmark.
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Changing which vaccines children receive would be a “terrible mistake,” says Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Protect public healthAn all-volunteer organization sponsored by a non-profit organization. As a result, more children may get sick and die from preventable diseases.
For example, RSV is a leading cause of hospitalization in infants, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year in the United States, between 58,000 and 80,000 children under the age of five are hospitalized because of this disease. Two available vaccines that are not technically vaccines, but Antibody drugs that protect against RSVwere approved in 2023 and 2025 and are more than 90 percent effective in protecting against hospitalization. Malati Rivera notes that many of the vaccines that are reportedly being canceled were only recently approved.
People have a random line of “old school” vaccines, such as polio and measles, and “new school” vaccines, such as measles. chicken pox And human papillomavirus (HPV) says Malati Rivera. But these new vaccines have been around for decades and have proven to be highly effective, she says.
The Trump administration has previously stated that he wants to model the U.S. vaccination policy after other developed countries and particularly Denmark, which recommends fewer vaccines than the U.S. and recommends them at different times in life. Comparison was a major topic of discussion at the latest meeting of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee. But it makes no sense to compare the US with countries like Denmark, which have completely different healthcare system.
The comparison is “not apples and oranges, but apples and steaks,” says Malati Rivera. “I cannot underestimate the value of universal health care and an extremely organized health infrastructure” in Denmark.
“We can learn a lot from some of the studies done in other countries, but we need to use a critical mind to figure out what applies to our context and what doesn't,” says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Brown University Pandemic Center.
The key difference between the US and Denmark, which Kennedy and other US health officials seem to avoid, is that the European country has a national health care system that is free for everyone, while the US does not.
“In Denmark or other places, there is universal health coverage where people don't fall into the same gaps in health care that they do in the United States. The reality of our health care system is that people fall into gaps like that,” Nuzzo says.
In the US, changes to the vaccination schedule will also affect who can get the vaccine. Whatever the CDC recommends affects what private health insurance companies will cover and what federal programs like the Vaccines for Children program will subsidize.
“When changes are made to the schedule, it will affect who can get vaccines, whether you want it or not,” Nuzzo says. “This is not about letting you give up. It's about making it harder for you to sign up.”
According to CNN, the plan could still change. The Department of Health and Human Services scheduled a news conference on children's health for Friday but has since delayed the announcement until next year.
If these further changes occur, they will undermine collective defenses against deadly infectious diseases, Nuzzo says. Selected health care providers and states can step up to maintain access to vaccines, but people could still slip through the cracks of an increasingly fragmented public health system.
“We need to make public health recommendations that work for everyone. Obviously, there are people who can't spend most of their time trying to find reliable sources of information,” Nuzzo says. “I worry about people who simply won’t get the vital protection they need.”
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