AAP Officially Announces Plans to Follow Its Own Vaccination Schedule Separate From CDC

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) officially announced that it will “continue to advise routine childhood immunization against 18 diseases rather than follow the greatly pared vaccination schedule released early this month by the CDC.” CIDRAP has the news.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the “anti-vaccine group founded by [HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], said it had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court accusing the AAP of engaging in a ‘decades-long racketeering scheme to defraud American families about the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule’” just days prior. Kennedy modeled this new vaccine schedule after Denmark’s, prompting criticism from medical experts who say “the two countries have different populations and public health needs.”

The AAP stated in a news release that the new CDC immunization schedule departs from “longstanding medical evidence and no longer offer[s] the optimal way to prevent illnesses in children.” Twelve leading professional organizations have endorsed the AAP immunization schedule.

The lawsuit filed by CHD claims the AAP makes “false claims about the safety of vaccines while receiving funding from vaccine makers and financially rewarding pediatricians who achieve high vaccination rates.” The lawsuit also mischaracterizes review conclusions that, in reality, “called for staying the course with continued policy analysis, research, and communications strategy development in the absence of adverse safety signals.”