US to slash routine vaccine recommendations for children in major change experts say creates doubt

"The changes, which US health officials announced on Monday afternoon and are effective immediately, will erode trust and reduce access to vaccines while allowing infectious diseases to spread, experts said. The goal of this administration is to basically make vaccines optional, said Paul Offit, an infectious diseases physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a former member of the advisory committee on vaccines for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And we're paying the price."

"The changes are a systematic attempt by health officials to erode public confidence in childhood vaccines, said Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Their longer range goal is to make vaccines unavailable by making impossible demands on the vaccine producers, like breaking up the components of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) into separate shots or casting doubt on the safe and effective components, like aluminum adjuvants, in other childhood immunizations, Hotez said."

The Trump administration reduced routine childhood vaccine recommendations from 17 to 11 doses, effective immediately. Several previously recommended vaccines will now be available only to high-risk individuals or designated as shared clinical decision-making requiring a doctor's recommendation. Vaccines for influenza, rotavirus, and RSV are no longer fully recommended. The revised schedule is said to resemble Denmark's with differences. The changes are expected to erode public confidence, reduce access to immunizations, and allow infectious diseases to spread. Officials aligned with longtime vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are overseeing the policy shift and analysts warn of longer-range efforts to challenge vaccine components and production.

Read at www.theguardian.com