On January 5, the United States Health and Human Services (HHS) published a memo that had the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) cut six immunization recommendations for children aged eleven to seventeen.
Inoculations for rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningitis, influenza, and COVID-19 will no longer be recommended to most children within the aforementioned age group. They will only be recommended for youths deemed to be at a higher level of risk, and on the basis of “shared clinical decision making,” which involves input from a health care provider and the parent or guardian of the child.
As the vaccinations were not removed from the schedule, costs and accessibility will largely be unscathed. There is one exception, however, in the form of the HPV vaccine; as only one dose is recommended due to this new policy, successive doses may cost $300 each (two to three doses of the HPV shot were recommended prior to the shift). Even then, health insurers, expressing their dissatisfaction with these changes, “have pledged to continue to cover all vaccines that were recommended in the prior childhood vaccine schedule.” They were joined by several states.
The policy was imposed without the typical public comment period, which has become typical of the nontransparent second Trump administration. Vaccine makers were not involved in decision making.
There is no evidence that the vaccines in question posed any particular threat to American children, or were ineffective.
