Spanish
The Donald Trump government announced this Monday that it will stop mandating four vaccines, those for rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease, and hepatitis A, within the childhood immunization schedule in the United States as part of its review of these programs.
These four vaccines will now become optional, and will be administered or not based on the agreed decision made, case by case, by parents and doctors.
The announcement comes just a month after the Trump administration asked to reduce the number of vaccines in children's schedules.
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With this change, which takes effect immediately, and which reduces the recommendation to vaccinate children for 11 diseases instead of the 18 against which they were immunized until now, represents a substantial shift in the United States health system. The Department of Health justifies its plan by referencing the Danish system, which has a schedule with fewer vaccines. "This decision protects children, respects families, and restores trust in public health," said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a statement released today.Your statement clashes with the position of doctors and health experts who believe that, without a public debate or a transparent review of the data, the measure puts children at risk.
This year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already partially applied this model in vaccines such as the covid-19 and hepatitis B vaccines for certain groups. Health officials pointed out that the reason justifying the change seeks to restore citizens' trust in the American health system, which, according to them, had been affected during the pandemic. The childhood vaccination schedule is a set of recommendations on when to administer vaccines that, although not mandatory, is used as a guide to determine which ones are necessary to attend nurseries and public schools.
