This week, the Centers for Disease Control updated its recommendations for the childhood vaccination schedule.
The new schedule is modeled after Denmark’s, containing vaccines for eleven diseases down from the original eighteen. The American Academy of Pediatrics still recommends the prior schedule with all eighteen shots.
Dr. Stephanie Hanson is a pediatrician at Sanford Health in Fargo. She says the new schedule shifts vaccines for seven of the diseases to “shared decision making,” which means they will still be available after speaking with health care providers.
The shots are for flu, covid, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal, RSV and rotavirus. Hanson she says the change could encourage further erosions in public trust.
"We'll be in a world where the American Academy of Pediatrics will continue to promote the existing vaccine schedule, but the CDC, who we previously relied on as a source of trust and truth in public health, will be promoting a different vaccine schedule. And families will be left in this zone where, they won't be sure which body to trust. Health experts in the middle - you know, pediatricians, and family medicine providers, other medical providers - will be doing a lot of leg work to help guide families and explain, help them understand why this dichotomy exists."
Hanson says the new recommendation schedule is not backed by science, and has not been proven to be safer. She says it does work well for Denmark, due to their smaller population, universal health care system and parental leave policies.