Jim O'Neill, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, signed the update effective immediately.
The new schedule reduced the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11, recommends some vaccines only for "high-risk" individuals, and says that some other vaccines, like influenza and rotavirus, can be given through "shared clinical decision-making," where patients discuss the vaccine with a physician.
According to CDC data, influenza has already killed nine children this year and the season hasn't hit its peak yet.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician and longtime proponent of vaccinations, said the move will "make America sicker."
"The vaccine schedule IS NOT A MANDATE. It's a recommendation giving parents the power. Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker," he wrote on X.
The change marks a major victory for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic who has long sought to reduce the number of vaccines children receive. The move comes just weeks after President Trump ordered health officials to compare the childhood vaccine schedule with "peer nations" and weigh recommending fewer shots.
Senior HHS officials, who declined to speak on the record, told reporters the changes are meant to restore trust in public health and vaccines that have spilled over from the COVID-19 pandemic.
They said the number of routine vaccinations, like measles, have been declining. Changing the childhood schedule is meant to emphasize the importance of those vaccines while also signaling there are some shots that every child does not need.
Mistrust in vaccines has led to a steady decline in vaccination rates. Later this month, the country will likely lose its official measles elimination status, which it has held since 2000.
But health experts decried the changes and said HHS was working to decrease trust.
"When guidance shifts unilaterally without a public process to weigh the risks and benefits, it undermines confidence and can lead to lower vaccination rates and increases in preventable illness," former CDC director Mandy Cohen said in a statement.
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