The medical community is waging a public relations fight against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over COVID-19 vaccines as students head back to school across the United States.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Wednesday issued more expansive COVID recommendations for children than the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), underscoring the growing breakdown in cooperation between doctors and federal health authorities.
Parents trying to navigate these recommendations face an increasingly complicated array of recommendations.
For children 6 months to 11 years old who are not immunocompromised, the CDC recommends shared decision-making with doctors, effectively leaving it up to parents.
However, the Food and Drug Administration last month only approved the Moderna COVID-19 shot – the only one on the market – for kids with an underlying condition, complicating access for healthy children.
The AAP guidance, like the CDC, advises shared decision-making for most children, but recommends COVID-19 vaccines for additional at-risk groups, including people who have never received a vaccine or who live with others at high risk of severe COVID.
The American Academy of Family Physicians maintains its own immunization schedule, recommending one or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for all children over six months old.
Uli von Andrian, president of the American Association of Immunologists, advised that parents confused by the conflicting messaging consult with a trusted healthcare professional on how to navigate the guidance.
Kennedy fired an opening salvo in the fight over COVID-19 recommendations earlier this year, when the CDC announced it would no longer recommend the COVID-19 shot for healthy children, citing a lack of clinical data to justify annual immunizations.
Kennedy is a prominent vaccine skeptic and petitioned the FDA in 2021 to revoke the emergency-use authorizations of the COVID-19 vaccines, as thousands were dying of the virus.
Routine immunization for other respiratory viruses like annual influenza are still recommended by CDC for children, and RSV monoclonal antibodies are recommended for infants aged between eight and 19 months.
Prior to Kennedy taking over HHS, organizations like AAP were typically aligned with the federal government, taking part in meetings discussing immunization recommendations. But when Kennedy gutted the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the AAP chose not to engage in what they called an “illegitimate” meeting this summer.
Other prominent physicians’ groups welcomed AAP’s guidance.
Von Andrian said the group “is very pleased to see trusted, independent organizations offering evidenced-based vaccine recommendations for patients and physicians to consider.”
“It is critical that the public and healthcare professionals have access to credible, trustworthy information about immunizations in order to make informed decisions about how to protect themselves and their loved ones,” added von Andrian.
In a meeting held this week by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy’s (CIDRAP) Vaccine Integrity Project, expert members of the group discussed what the current scientific literature supported in regard to COVID-19 vaccinations.
“[AAP’s] recommendations are consistent with our literature findings specifically for COVID, that children at highest risk for severe disease and COVID transmission receive the COVID vaccine,” CIDRAP Director Michael Osterholm said in concluding the meeting.
“Other medical societies will be following them in the coming weeks. Americans will have evidence-based immunization recommendations from medical experts for the viruses responsible for tens of thousands of hospitalizations and deaths annually and they’ll come from clinicians who spend every day caring for these patient populations,” added Osterholm.
Supporters of Kennedy’s decision, however, argue that not recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children falls in line with the current evidence and other guidance around the world.
“Since 2022, the World Health Organization has taken the same position Secretary Kennedy took. The Canadian vaccination authority took the same position as Secretary Kennedy. The UK vaccination organizations took the same position as Secretary Kennedy,” noted Monique Yohanan, physician and senior fellow at the conservative nonprofit Independent Women.
The World Health Organization does not recommend routine COVID-19 revaccination for healthy children and adolescents, recommending the shot for all immunocompromised individuals and children and adolescents with at least one comorbidity.
“We were the only country in the world recommending this vaccine for healthy kids. So, from my
perspective, AAP right now is an outlier with regards to science,” Yohanan added.
Yonahan expressed concern that the discourse over COVID-19 vaccines would bleed into how parents feel about vaccinating against other illnesses, which she believes are more pressing issues.
“I think it’s really important as we get to school season, for parents to revisit — we definitely don’t have enough kids who are vaccinated against the measles,” she said. “We definitely need to focus on the vaccines that are important for community protection.”
In recent years, the U.S. has fallen off the ideal 95 percent vaccine coverage rate for protection against measles. The West Texas region where the measles outbreak was only recently declared ended had nearly half of all students exempted from measles vaccinations.
