Federal health officials now recommend that children be routinely inoculated against 11 diseases, not 17, citing standards in other wealthy nations.
Federal health officials on Monday announced dramatic revisions to the slate of vaccines recommended for American children, reducing the number of diseases prevented by routine shots to 11 from 17.
Jim O’Neill, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has updated the agency’s immunization schedule to reflect the changes, effective immediately, officials said at a news briefing.
The announcement represents a momentous shift in federal vaccine policy, and perhaps the most significant change yet in public health practice by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, who has long sought to reduce the number of shots American children receive.
The states, not the federal government, have the authority to mandate vaccinations. But recommendations from the C.D.C. greatly influence state regulations. Mr. Kennedy and his appointees have made other alterations to the childhood vaccination schedule, but those have had smaller impact.
The new schedule circumvents the detailed and methodical evidence-based process that has underpinned vaccine recommendations in the nation for decades. Until now, a federal panel of independent advisers typically reviewed scientific data for each new vaccine, and when and how it should be administered to children, before making recommendations.
Public health experts expressed outrage at the sweeping revisions, saying federal officials did not present evidence to support the changes or incorporate input from vaccine experts.
“The abrupt change to the entire U.S. childhood vaccine schedule is alarming, unnecessary, and will endanger the health of children in the United States,” said Dr. Helen Chu, a physician and immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a former member of the federal vaccine advisory committee.
Dr. Chu also took issue with the health officials’ claim that the move would increase trust in vaccines and raise immunization rates. It will do the opposite, she warned.
“Already, parents are worried about what they are hearing in the news about safety of vaccines, and this will increase confusion and decrease vaccine uptake,” Dr. Chu said.
Mistrust of vaccines has already led to a steady decline in vaccination rates and a resurgence of preventable diseases like measles and pertussis, or whooping cough. In 2025, the United States recorded more cases of measles than it had in any year since 1993.
Later this month, the country may lose its official measles elimination status, which it has held since 2000.
“Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly clear that we can no longer trust the leadership of our federal government for credible information about vaccines, and that’s a tragedy that will cause needless suffering,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The pediatrics academy “will continue to publish evidence-based vaccination schedules with the best interests of Americans at their core, not based on a political agenda,” he said. The academy is suing the health and human services department after it canceled $12 million in grants for child health programs to the organization.
The C.D.C.’s new schedule continues to recommend vaccines against some diseases, including measles, polio and whooping cough, for all children.
Immunization against six other illnesses — hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease, rotavirus, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, the leading cause of hospitalization in American infants — will be recommended for only some high-risk groups or after consultation with a health care provider.
In September, a federal panel of vaccine advisers also recommended that vaccinations against Covid-19 also be administered only after consultation with a health care provider.
