The R.F.K. Jr. Era of Childhood Vaccines

From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily Mail. Earlier this week, the CDC released new guidelines which dramatically cut down the number of childhood vaccines recommended by the federal government. Today, my colleagues Benjamin Mueller and Apoorva Mandeville explain what's being cut, how this fits into the broader agenda from health secretary Robert F Kennedy Junior, and the broader implications for public health. It's Thursday, January 8. Ben Apoorva, thank you both so much for being here today. Glad to be here. Thanks so much for having us. So ever since Robert f Kennedy junior was confirmed as the health secretary, there have been all kinds of questions about how he might seek to reshape public health policy, particularly as it relates to vaccines, which he has been openly skeptical about for years. And this week, we saw some of the first major changes on that front. And I wanna talk about the changes, why he made them, the implications for public health. But first, Apoorva, can you just explain to us what vaccines were affected? So before Monday, American children were supposed to routinely get vaccines for 17 diseases. And on Monday, secretary Kennedy and his associates, the other health officials, said that that vaccine schedule for children would be pared down so that now routine recommendation includes vaccination against 11 diseases. And which six were taken off? So the six that are now being treated differently are respiratory syncytial virus, RSV. RSV, yes. Rotavirus, hepatitis a and b, meningococcal vaccines, which are really for meningitis, and influenza. And I wanna clarify here that when we say they were taken off, they are still on the recommendations. They're just recommended differently. So in theory, these vaccines are still all on the schedule, but they are now being recommended either for certain high risk groups or if you don't fall into one of those groups that you should consult with your doctor first before getting them. So what it actually means in practice is that fewer people will get them, more people will be confused, and the public health experts that I've been talking to feel that this will actually undermine trust in vaccines in a very broad way, and people will start to think they're not really necessary at all. And, Ben, can you tell us a little bit about what the argument is from secretary Kennedy and the CDC for why this change was necessary and a good idea? Kennedy's been campaigning about the dangers of vaccines for years, and even Trump has sort of adopted that language about kids getting too many shots with sort of vague reference to the dangers that that might hold for kids, dangers that doctors don't believe are actually reflected in the evidence. In this case, Kennedy has sort of taken Denmark as his model, a country that has a much more minimal vaccine schedule than The United States, a much smaller country with a very …