U.S. drops the number of vaccines it recommends for every child, alarming Long Island pediatricians

Federal health officials took the unprecedented step of removing recommendations that all children be vaccinated against certain diseases such as the flu, RSV, hepatitis B and some forms of meningitis, alarming Long Island pediatricians who worry it will cause further hesitancy about immunizations and more sick kids.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will now recommend vaccines for 11 diseases, instead of 17. It said the removed vaccines are recommended only for high-risk pediatric groups or if specifically discussed and recommended by a doctor.

Other vaccines off the list include hepatitis A, dengue, meningococcal ACWY, and meningococcal B. Last year, the CDC stopped recommending the COVID-19 vaccination for all children.

Vaccinations for other diseases, including measles, whooping cough, polio, tetanus, chickenpox and HPV, will continue to be recommended for all children, the agency said.

"After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent," U.S. Health and Humans Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy said in a statement. "This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health."

While states set immunization mandates for children to attend school, pediatricians said the new federal recommendations could create more resistance among parents to what has been widely regarded as an important public health policy.

Dr. Eve Meltzer Krief, a pediatrician at Allied Physicians Group’s Huntington Village Pediatrics and vice president of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ New York chapter, said the changes will "significantly increase vaccine hesitancy at a time when we're already seeing high levels of confusion among parents."

"They’re coming into the world with these new babies and they just want to do the right thing," she said. "Now they have government agencies not recommending all the vaccines that are evidence-based to save children's lives and keep them healthy."

Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital said the new recommendations ignore years of progress made by vaccines and treatments.

For example, RSV treatments for babies have dramatically reduced hospitalizations from the disease and the Hepatitis A vaccine has worked so well that most physicians have not seen a case in years, she said.

"Thinking that you can be smarter than the pathogen and know who is going to be high-risk is not realistic," Nachman said.

Kennedy had long promised changes in the childhood vaccine schedule. Officials said families who want the vaccines won't lose access to them, and said insurance will continue to pay.

Creating any barrier to a vaccine for meningococcal disease — a severe bacterial infection — could have severe consequences, Nachman said.

"You can lose limbs," she said.

In December, President Donald Trump asked HHS to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising its guidance to align with theirs.

HHS said its comparison to 20 peer nations found that the United States was an "outlier" in both the number of vaccinations and the number of doses it recommended to all children.

Basing vaccine recommendations on those in Denmark, Japan, Germany and other peer nations is problematic, said Dr. Annemarie Stroustrup, who oversees pediatric services at Northwell Health.

"I suspect what will happen is there will be more disease in the face of less vaccination," she said.

The Danish population has easy access to high-quality health care, she said, while in the United States access can be hard and expensive.

"If access to care is easy and free, you can afford to do a little bit less preventative medicine because people are not likely to get as sick if they in fact do get the disease," she said.

Stroustrup said the recommendations will add "another layer of confusion and potentially distrust."

The New York State Health Department has joined with other Northeast states to create their own vaccine and health care recommendations over the last year, rejecting the policies made by Kennedy, a known vaccine skeptic, and an advisory panel he appointed. Officials with the consortium did not immediately comment on the new federal recommendations.

Long Island has already been a center of activity from parents looking to avoid vaccine mandates. Hundreds of Long Island children were involved in two separate schemes to falsify vaccination records, according to the state department of health.

Jeanette Breen, a former Baldwin midwife, falsified vaccination records for nearly 1,300 children, most from Long Island, the health department said. The health department fined her $300,000 in 2024.

The state currently is investigating whether former Amityville nurse Julie DeVuono falsified childhood vaccination records for children from as many as 91 of Long Island’s 124 school districts, along with several upstate. The health department held hearings early last year in an administrative case against DeVuono. A decision is pending. DeVuono has denied falsifying childhood vaccine records but in 2023, she pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to selling more than $1.2 million in fraudulent COVID-19 vaccine cards. She was sentenced to community service and was required to surrender her state nursing licenses.

Newsday's David Olson contributed to this story.

With AP.

By Lisa L. Colangelo

lisa.colangelo@newsday.com@lisalcolangelo

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.