What are parents to do as doctors clash with Trump administration over
vaccines?
[December 10, 2025]
By LAURAN NEERGAARD and MIKE STOBBE
It’s normal for parents, or anyone, to have questions about vaccinations
-- but what happens if your pediatrician urges a shot that’s under
attack by the Trump administration?
That’s getting more likely: The nation’s leading doctors groups are in
an unprecedented standoff with federal health officials who have
attacked long-used, lifesaving vaccines.
The revolt by pediatricians, obstetricians, family physicians,
infectious disease experts and internists came to a head when an
advisory panel handpicked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
urged an end to routine newborn vaccination against hepatitis B, a virus
that can cause liver failure or liver cancer.
That vaccine saves lives, helped child infections plummet and has been
given safely to tens of millions of children in the U.S. alone, say the
American Academy of Pediatrics and other doctors groups that vowed
Tuesday to keep recommending it.
But that’s not the only difference. That Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices now is examining possible changes to the entire
childhood vaccination schedule, questioning certain ingredients and how
many doses youngsters receive.
Pushing back, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued its own
recommendations for youngsters. Other medical groups — plus some city
and state public health departments that have banded together — also are
issuing their own advice on certain vaccines, which largely mirrors
pre-2025 federal guidance.
“We owe our patients a consistent message informed by evidence and lived
experience, not messages biased by political imperative,” Dr. Ronald
Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told
reporters Tuesday.
But Nahass acknowledged the inevitable consumer confusion, recounting a
relative calling him last weekend for advice about hepatitis B
vaccination for her new grandbaby.
“Most Americans don’t have a Cousin Ronnie to call. They are left alone
with fear and mistrust,” he said, urging parents to talk with their
doctors about vaccines.
New guidelines without new data concern doctors
Hepatitis B isn't the only vaccine challenge. Kennedy’s health
department recently changed a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
webpage to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines
don’t cause autism. Federal agencies also moved to restrict COVID-19
vaccinations this fall, and are planning policy changes that could
restrict future flu and coronavirus shots.
But when it comes to vaccine advice, "for decades, ACIP was the gold
standard,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician and
Stanford University researcher.
The panel once routinely enlisted specialists in specific diseases for
long deliberations of the latest science and safety data, resulting in
recommendations typically adopted not only by the CDC but by the medical
field at large, he said.
Last week’s meeting of Kennedy’s panel, which includes vaccine skeptics,
marked a radical departure. CDC specialists weren’t allowed to present
data on hepatitis B, the childhood vaccine schedule or questions about
vaccine ingredients. Few of the committee members have public health
experience, and some expressed confusion about the panel's proposals.
At one point, a doctor called in to say the panel was misrepresenting
her study’s findings. And the panel’s chairman wondered why one dose of
yellow fever vaccine protected him during a trip to Africa when U.S.
children get three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine
is designed to protect children for life from a virus they can encounter
anywhere, not just on a trip abroad. And other scientists noted it was
carefully studied for years to prove the three-dose course offers
decades of immunity — evidence that a single dose simply doesn’t have.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks
during a news conference at the Hubert Humphrey Building Auditorium
in Washington, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)
 “If they’ve got new data, I’m all
for it — let’s see it and have a conversation,” said Dr. Kelly Gebo,
an infectious disease specialist and public health dean at George
Washington University, who watched for that. "I did not see any new
data,” so she’s not changing her vaccine advice.
Committee members argued that most babies' risk of hepatitis B
infection is very low and that earlier research on infant shot
safety was inadequate.
Especially unusual was a presentation from a lawyer who voiced doubt
about studies that proved benefits of multiple childhood vaccines
and promoted discredited research pointing to harms.
“I don’t think at any point in the committee’s history, there was a
90-minute uninterrupted presentation by someone who wasn’t a
physician, a scientist, or a public health expert on the topic — let
alone someone who, who makes his living in vaccine litigation,” said
Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy expert at Yale University.
By abandoning data and the consensus of front-line doctors, the ACIP
is “actively burning down the credibility that made its
recommendations so powerful,” added Stanford’s Scott. “Most parents
will still follow their pediatricians, and AAP is holding the line
here. But the mixed messages are precisely what erode confidence
over time.”
Parents already have a choice — they need solid guidance
Trump administration health officials say it’s important to restore
choice to parents and to avoid mandates. That’s how the panel's
hepatitis B recommendation was framed — that parents who really want
it could get their children vaccinated later.
Parents already have a choice, said Dr. Aaron Milstone of the
American Academy of Pediatrics. The government makes population-wide
recommendations while families and their doctors tailor choices to
each person’s health needs.
But many doctors don’t — or can’t — do their own lengthy scientific
review of vaccines and thus had relied on the ACIP and CDC
information, Yale’s Schwartz noted.
They “rely on trusted expert voices to help navigate what is, even
in the best of times, a complicated landscape regarding the evidence
for vaccines and how best to use them,” he said.
That’s a role that the pediatricians and other doctors groups, plus
those multistate collaborations, aim to fill with their own
guidelines — while acknowledging it will be a huge task.
For now, “ask your questions, bring your concerns and let us talk
about them,” said Dr. Sarah Nosal, of the American Academy of Family
Physicians, urging anyone with vaccine questions to have an open
conversation with their doctor.
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