Leading Pediatrics Group Breaks With CDC Over COVID-19 Shots For Kids

The American Academy of Pediatrics on Tuesday released an evidence-based immunization schedule that, for the first time in 30 years, is not aligned with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Unlike the CDC, which under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. no longer recommends routine COVID-19 vaccination for children, the AAP is recommending all children ages 6-23 months should get a 2025-26 COVID shot.

The group said CDC data supports the finding, even if the CDC itself does not.

Data shows COVID-19 hospitalizations for children under the age of 2 are currently comparable to people between the ages of 50-64 years, and are the highest among all pediatric groups.

More than half of children under the age of 2 hospitalized with COVID-19 didn’t have an underlying medical condition.

“It’s clear that we’re in a different place in the pandemic than we were four or five years ago in terms of risks to healthy older kids,” said Sean T. O’Leary, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases (COID) in a release.

However, “the risk of hospitalization for young children and those with high-risk conditions remains pretty high.”

The AAP recommends children between the ages of 2 and 18 get vaccinated if:

• They’re at high risk of severe COVID-19
• They spend time in settings with lots of other people, especially long-term care facilities
• They’ve never been vaccinated against COVID-19
• Other people in their household are at high risk of COVID-19

Other children who don’t fall into those risk groups should also still strongly consider getting vaccinated.

“The guidance differs from that of the CDC, which no longer recommends routine COVID vaccination for healthy children,” AAP acknowledged in a statement.

The pediatrics advocacy group criticized the CDC approach, which does permit vaccination after a discussion with a health care provider, for essentially making no recommendation at all.

“Shared clinical decision-making can be difficult to implement because it lacks clear guidance,” AAP said, “and does not emphasize the importance of vaccinating people at high risk of severe disease.”

Federal guidance on vaccinations has faced tremendous scrutiny after President Donald Trump tapped RFK Jr. to oversee U.S. health policy. In June, the prominent vaccine skeptic fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices and replaced them with vaccine critics and conspiracy theorists.

Major health groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physicians, have since sued HHS over its “unlawful” COVID-19 policies.

RFK Jr. also canceled half a billion dollars’ worth of research projects because they’re based on the same mRNA technology that saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.