Trump order endorses plan to halve vaccines recommended for children | Donald Trump

An executive order signed with little fanfare by Donald Trump on Friday could have a major impact on the health of US children as it directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines by nearly half.

The executive order’s vague language refers to “a scientific evaluation comparing the United States’ vaccine recommendations for children to those of peer nations.” It was published A statement issued in January by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy’s health and human services department did not explicitly state that the new recommendation would remove vaccines against seven diseases from the schedule.

Vaccine skeptic Dr. who was later fired. The review, co-authored by Tracy Beth Høeg, concluded that the CDC director should update the childhood immunization program to “maintain vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, and human papillomavirus (HPV), for which developed countries also share international consensus” such as varicella (chickenpox)… vaccines recommended for all children “in the category”.

Implementation of this recommendation would mean removing vaccines for these diseases from the recommended schedule:

• hepatitis A

• hepatitis B

• meningitis

• rotavirus

• flu

• COVID-19

The evaluation also recommended reducing the number of doses of the human papillomavirus or HPV vaccine from two or three (depending on the child’s age) to one.

The order directs the CDC and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to review the HHS assessment and clinical data to update the vaccine schedule for children and adolescents.

“It is the policy of the United States to align the childhood primary vaccination program with scientific evidence and best practices in developed countries while preserving Americans’ access to currently available vaccines,” the White House said.

15 states with Democratic governors They’re suing HHS and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of the administration’s proposed changes to federal vaccine recommendations, he advocated “removing vaccines from their universally recommended status in favor of pointless complexity and evasion that will make children sicker and strain government resources.” The lawsuit also complained about a CDC memo that lowered its recommendation for vaccination against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

D., professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a former member of ACIP. “There appears to be little scientific basis for changing past recommendations,” William Schaffner said. He told the Association of American Medical Colleges In January.

“If we do not progressively vaccinate children against certain diseases, sooner or later we will see the reemergence of these diseases, just as we saw with the recent measles epidemics,” Schaffner said. he added. “The consequences of this will be more sick children, more doctor visits and more hospitalizations.”

The lawsuit from the states also noted that the health department’s review, which aligned the U.S. vaccine program with those “peer countries,” “focused specifically on Denmark.”

“However, Denmark is not a ‘partner country’ regarding vaccines because, unlike the United States, it has a small, homogeneous population and universal healthcare, among other features,” said lawyers of 15 states. “And Denmark’s vaccine policies are too global an anomaly to be adapted to the United States.”

“Even the Danish health authorities were stunned by the Defendants’ trust in Denmark,” the lawyers added. Comments to the New York Times From an official equivalent to the CDC in Denmark.

Danish official Dr. “It’s not fair at all to say look at Denmark unless you fit the other characteristics of Denmark,” Anders Hviid told the Times in December.

In this interview, Hviid also noted the irony of Kennedy’s health department’s reliance on Denmark, given that he and other Danish health officials had debunked Kennedy’s theories about the harm of the vaccine.

Reuters contributed reporting