San Diego doctors say vaccination changes are already causing confusion

The federal government’s decision Monday to remove six vaccines from the nation’s routine childhood vaccination schedule was immediately felt by San Diego County pediatricians on Tuesday as parents began asking questions about how the change would affect their children.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published a memo Monday that shifted immunizations against hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza and COVID-19 from vaccinations recommended for all children to those that should be given if a child is at increased risk of disease or “based on clinical decision-making” in conversation with one’s physician. Special medications to prevent respiratory syncytial virus, often called RSV, are recommended to all newborns if their mothers had not received the RSV vaccine during pregnancy; they were moved to a “high risk” designation, though that shift is functionally the same, as babies are at high risk if their mother was not vaccinated.

Trump administration officials justify the unprecedented change in a 10-page “decision memo” signed by Jim O’Neill, acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arguing that these particular shots are not given universal recommendations in other countries, such as Denmark, and thus should not be routinely administered in the U.S.

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