After Trump order, RFK Jr. seeks input on US pediatric vaccine recommendations

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has teamed up with President Donald Trump to question the process behind the United States' decisions on childhood vaccines. In a Request for Information (RFI) published on Monday in the Federal Register, Kennedy is seeking public input over the next 30 days on whether adjustments should be made to the current vaccine classifications. The RFI revisits U.S. vaccine recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses how the public's trust in federal health agencies has dropped.

Kennedy emphasizes that the effectiveness of vaccine recommendations relies heavily on public trust in the process. He states that maintaining trust is crucial for public health goals and informed individual decisions. The RFI follows President Trump's recent executive order, which aims to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11, based on scientific evidence and practices from other developed countries.

Kennedy's request proposes changing the existing categories of vaccine recommendations, which are: universally for all children, for specific high-risk groups, and shared clinical decision-making (SCDM). He questions if the current categories unintentionally suggest that parental consent, individual consent, or meaningful clinical discussion only apply to the SCDM recommendations.

The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) also wants to determine if people understand if the categories convey meaningful differences in the strength of evidence and the magnitude of benefits for each vaccine and the overall population. Additionally, they seek feedback on whether the categories leave room for individual circumstances and values.

This push by Trump and Kennedy comes after a recent court ruling blocking the government's decision to remove six routine vaccines from the childhood vaccination schedule. The HHS's decision sparked outrage from scientific and medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which filed a lawsuit that led to the legal halt.

The court sided with the AAP, ruling that Kennedy's actions were unlawful when he dismissed the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replaced its members with his own appointees.