OPINION: CDC Reduces Routine Childhood Vaccine Schedule By ~55 Doses

BAY COUNTY, FL - Following the issue of President Trump’s Presidential Memoranda directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to review best practices for core childhood vaccination recommendations, the CDC today updated the Childhood Immunization Schedule.

This marks the largest rollback of routine childhood vaccination in U.S. history.

“President Trump directed us to examine how other developed nations protect their children and to take action if they are doing better,” Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. “After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent. This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.”

The result is a dramatically smaller routine childhood vaccine schedule, cutting routine doses from 84 – 88 doses that targeted 17 diseases, down to about 30 routine doses targeting 10 – 11 diseases, a reduction of 54 – 58 routines doses.

Under the accepted recommendations, CDC will continue to organize the childhood immunization schedule in three distinct categories, all of which require insurance companies to cover them without cost-sharing: No family will lose access. This framework empowers parents and physicians to make individualized decisions based on risk, while maintaining strong protection against serious disease.

The first category, “For All Children,” will include vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus (HPV) (reduced from 2 doses to 1), and varicella (chickenpox). (The vaccines no longer recommended for this category are COVID-19, Influenza, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, Rotavirus, meningococcal ACWY, and meningococcal B. These vaccines account for nearly the entire ~55-dose reduction.)

The second category, “For Certain High-Risk Groups or Populations,” will include respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, dengue, meningococcal ACWY, and meningococcal B.

The third category will include rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B.

There is a need for more and better gold standard science, including placebo-controlled randomized trials and long-term observational studies to better characterize vaccine benefits, risks, and outcomes. These vaccines are still not “safe by default.”

View the fact sheet here.

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