01/28/2026
I know all the news about vaccine recommendations lately has caused lots of confusion for parents. I wanted to take a minute and try to explain what is going on and hopefully help you feel confident in the choices you make for your child.
First of all let me say I am a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. I have been a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1996. This is made up of 67,000 pediatricians whose mission and purpose is to help infants, children and adolescents obtain their optimal mental, physical, social health and well-being being. We pay a small fee yearly to get access to their handouts, office educational materials, journals, infectious disease guidebooks, websites that we share with patients, etc. We are not paid to endorse them. We receive no extra pay for belonging to their organization. We get no special rates on the cost of vaccines. Most pediatricians just find it useful to belong to this organization and not several other medical organizations because our passion is Pediatrics. We truly want to learn in any way we can and let our patients benefit from what we learn and the AAP makes pediatric continuing medical education readily available.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has always put out a recommended vaccine schedule for children in coordination with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is part of the CDC. The ACIP has always been a trustworthy organization in previous years and I have consulted with them and spoken to them as well as the CDC clinical help line in years past however, this year HHS was taken over by a known self-proclaimed anyi-vaxxer who replaced medical members of the ACIP with non-medical, non-pediatric advisors. Previous studies that had been reproduced time and time again were disregarded and HHS and ACIP began looking at small studies with non-reproducible results appropriate for countries with 1/20th our population.
The AAP bases it's recommendations on evidence based science, some of which has been reproduced over 50 years. Many members of the AAP including myself are old enough to have seen the diseases and complications and death from the diseases that the ACIP recommends not being vaccinated against or delaying vaccination against. We have practiced long enough to have seen the studies, seen the diseases and seen the very few side effects in real life. Pediatricians probably understand more about vaccines and have more real-life experience with vaccines than anyone you can think of. We go to high school, four years of college, four years of med school in which we do pediatric rotations and electives as well as three straight years of pediatric only internship and residency before we can even practice pediatrics. You can feel confident that much of our day is giving and discussing vaccines and reviewing the studies. That's why twelve other large medical organizations have sided with and recommended the AAP's vaccine schedule. You can be sure that we will discuss benefits and risks with you for each vaccine and we know the risks of side effects from vaccines is much less likely than what the preventable disease would do to your child should they get it.
The AAP schedule has not changed from last year. The AAP recommends immunization against eighteen preventable diseases versus eleven recommended by the ACIP/CDC. We feel by leaving off the vaccines that the ACIP recommends leaving off, we will see much more diseases like meningitis, hepatitis, rotavirus , flu, RSV and others which means we will see more meningitis, sepsis, death, respiratory distress, dehydration, liver failure and cancers to name a few. We want EVERY child to have their best chance at living a healthy, happy, joyful life free of diseases that are preventable!
Despite the misinformation you frequently see on social media and in clips from Robert F. Kennedy Jr ( a lawyer), your pediatrician does not get paychecks by vaccine and drug companies to give your child vaccines. To be honest, many of us have lost money on several vaccines over the years because we chose to put children's health above profit.
So in a nut shell, your pediatrician will continue to recommend the same vaccines we recommended last year based on years and years of evidence and studies and even follow up on kids after vaccines.
Most are lucky in that vaccines have been so effective most people have never seen the diseases we are trying to protect kids from.
I have included the recommended AAP vaccine schedule for kids six and under and those seven and above so you know which ones to expect.
This is not meant to be political, I truly just wanted to clear up some confusion about what is best in our opinion because I have had several parents ask me about it as I know my pediatrician friends have also.
We truly just want your child to be the healthiest they can be no matter their age, color, social status, religion, sexual orientation. We don't care! We honestly just love your kids! If we were doing this for the money we wouldn't bre doing peds!
We have all gone to funerals of our patients and ICU visits and hospitalizations with our patients for many different reasons and we never want a child to suffer for any reason, especially from something preventable. It is heart-breaking! Please bring your questions and know we will be totally honest with you and tell you the good and bad. Thank you!
