Dr. Jessica Wise, a pediatrician in D.C., has seen more and more parents questioning vaccinating their children. She cares for about 15 families a day, and said what used to be monthly questions about vaccine safety have become weekly questions.
But she stressed that this was not yet the norm.
“Overwhelmingly, most parents and caregivers want their children vaccinated,” Wise, who is also president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) chapter, told TPM.
last friday, The Washington Post published an article Outlines plans for new childhood vaccine guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Human Services. The guidelines will recommend fewer vaccines and encourage a “shared clinical decision-making” model that invites parents and doctors to discuss directions for most shots in the absence of clear guidance from the federal government. The United States reportedly plans to follow an immunization schedule similar to Denmark’s.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, would not confirm these plans in a comment to the Washington Post. “Unless you hear it directly from the Department of Health and Human Services, this is just speculation,” Nixon told the newspaper. But 2025 saw federal health agencies repeatedly scale back vaccine recommendations, while federal officials publicly questioned its effectiveness.
The competing narratives — medical professionals broadly endorse decades of science supporting vaccine safety while the federal government under President Donald Trump does not — create a confusing environment that ultimately shifts long-standing medical recommendation practices from the federal government to parents, individual practitioners and medical associations.
“The types of statements coming from our health officials are unlike anything we have seen in the recent history of vaccination in the United States,” said Jason Schwartz, an assistant professor of health policy at Yale University. “All of this would undoubtedly cause panic among parents.”
After a partial attack on childhood vaccines, the federal government’s planned new guidance focuses on scientific recommendations in a way that medical professionals who spoke to TPM fear will harm children, confuse parents, burden health care providers, and create unpredictable ripple effects that affect vaccine manufacturers and insurance coverage.
“If we shift policy away from a standardized vaccination schedule, it impacts who needs vaccines, and how much [vaccine manufacturers] Make, who pays for it, [and] Is it universally available to everyone?” Wise said.
There have been rumblings for months about official changes coming from the Department of Health and Human Services to the vaccination schedule for children. Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaxxer, in June Introducing all members 17 From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, he installed his disciples. These new members began changing immunization schedules and recommendations, eliminating clarity when they were not explicitly recommended vaccinations, and sowing seeds of distrust in the safety of vaccines. In November, the CDC surprised the medical and research community when it updated a report Web page about autism and vaccines To suggest that vaccines can cause autism, a claim that has been conclusively debunked.
The page, which was updated on November 19, lists key points that include, “The claim that ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not evidence-based,” and “Health authorities have ignored studies supporting the existence of this link.”
A torrent of medical professional organizations at the time went on record and refuted the government’s claims. More than thirty organizations have issued a Joint statement Denouncing the use of “taxpayer-funded health agencies” to “spread harmful rumours.”
“The conclusion is clear and unequivocal: there is no link between vaccines and autism,” Dr. Susan J. Chrisley, AAP National President, He said in a statement.
Then, in early December, ACIP They voted to rescind hepatitis B vaccination recommendations for newbornswhich reflects a policy that has been in place for more than 30 years.
“I think it would be serious in terms of the impact of childhood vaccines,” Arthur Caplan, a renowned bioethicist and founding director of the Department of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told TPM.
“Parents get nervous when what they see as trusted government authorities start attacking this system and raising false concerns about the risks,” Kaplan said. “There are a lot of people who see the CDC or the Department of Health and Human Services and say, ‘I trust that.’”
Schwartz, who studies vaccine policy specifically, described an environment where well-meaning parents who want to do what’s best for their children’s health are led into blindness, with competing medical claims made by different figures in power.
“It’s really important to remember that the vast majority of parents who are faced with decisions about vaccinating their children do not have strongly held beliefs that question the safety of vaccines,” Schwartz told TPM. “Instead, they are trying to figure out how to navigate this seemingly contested landscape.”
Most parents are not partisan representatives, but they are not confident in the safety of the shots for their children because of federal policy changes, Schwartz said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new focus on the shared clinical decision-making model both incorrectly suggests that pediatricians haven’t already been talking with parents about vaccine options and are likely taking up more time in doctors’ already busy schedules, Schwartz said.
Kaplan is part of a yet-to-be-released study in which researchers found Kennedy’s unsubstantiated claims from September Tylenol linked to autism It has already led to a “significant number” of pregnant women cutting back on the use of over-the-counter medication.
“I may think Kennedy is an idiot and a chronic liar, but that doesn’t mean many Americans view his messages that way,” Kaplan said.
However, as Weisz’s anecdotal evidence from patients in the liberal DMV area indicates, survey after survey has continued to show that more parents continue to have confidence in the safety of childhood immunization.
that October survey KFF and The Washington Post of more than 2,700 parents found that 81% support vaccine requirements in public schools. Ninety percent of parents supported measles, mumps and rubella vaccines, while a much smaller majority, 56%, supported childhood influenza vaccination. Only 43% of parents in that study said it was important for children to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
In november, The Pew Research Center published a study Found 71% of American parents were at least somewhat confident in vaccine safety testing and 68% were at least somewhat confident in scheduling children’s vaccines.
Kaplan found, as did the Pew study, that beliefs about vaccine safety cut across political and class lines, with Republicans and respondents with less traditional education having lower confidence in vaccines. However, a poll of parents in the red state of Georgia conducted by Emory University in late October and early November found that 88% of parents in the state We believe vaccines are safe.
The Emory study looked at parents’ understanding of insurance company coverage of vaccines, and this is where things get murky. Less than a third of Georgia parents know that insurance companies generally follow ACIP recommendations when deciding which vaccines to cover.
For now, Schwartz said insurers are still required to cover vaccines because the federal government has left immunization recommendations in a gray area that doesn’t explicitly recommend vaccines, but also doesn’t recommend them. The shared decision-making model continues to require insurance companies to cover vaccinations. However, The Washington Post quoted A A 2016 study found that most pediatricians were not aware of this. Nearly 10 years later, uncertainty remains.
“I think there are still a lot of questions going forward about what insurance companies will cover,” Wise said.