Hospitals and doctors are ignoring RFK Jr.’s new vaccine schedule and relying on pediatricians’ guidance instead

STAT News – Thursday, January 15, 2026
By Daniel Payne

WASHINGTON — Last week, the Trump administration unilaterally cut the number of recommended pediatric vaccines, removing shots for diseases like rotavirus, influenza, and hepatitis A from the schedule.

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the changes were intended to restore trust in public health. But major health systems and clinicians told STAT they plan to ignore the new federal guidelines, placing their trust instead in guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is similar to previous U.S. policy.

Their decision to ignore the government’s guidance undermines Kennedy’s effort to rebuild trust and underscores a growing divide between federal health authorities and major medical groups. The situation risks further balkanizing U.S. vaccine policy, contributing to a situation where which vaccines a person is recommended depends on where they live or which doctor they see.

“I don’t think that the vast majority of health care providers will change,” José Romero, a pediatrician and vaccine expert who previously chaired the government’s vaccine advisory board, said. Romero is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ infectious diseases committee but said he wasn’t speaking on behalf of the group. “I think confusion is going to be the main thing here.”

Pediatric hospitals — Children’s National in Washington, D.C., Texas Children’s, Seattle Children’s, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia — told STAT they would be following the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidance, a plan mirrored by several other pediatric groups throughout the U.S.

A spokesperson for the Cleveland Clinic said care wasn’t changing because of the schedule, adding that clinicians are “still offering all the vaccines and encouraging our patients and families to talk to their providers regarding any questions.”

Asked about major health systems rejecting the new schedule, HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard said in a statement that the new schedule “continues to protect children against serious diseases while aligning U.S. guidance with international norms.” (The new U.S. schedule has actually made America an outlier internationally.)

She suggested the shift in vaccine policy was in response to Americans voting for “transparency” in the wake of the pandemic — even as health providers and public health experts have complained that the administration’s process has been opaque.

The agency “will work with states and clinicians to ensure families have clear, accurate information to make their own informed decisions,” Hilliard wrote.

It’s not the first time health systems have shrugged off recommendations from Kennedy’s health department. In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine panel recommended — without new evidence — delaying the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns. The meeting to make that decision ignored usual processes and included a long presentation from a vaccine critic with no medical training.

Health systems responded by saying they would ignore the guidance, with some doctors saying they saw no evidence backing up the abrupt change.

Doctors fear the most immediate result of the changes will be an erosion of trust. At the same time, research and recent polling have suggested that pediatricians hold the most sway in whether parents get their children vaccinated. Providers keeping with previous, expert-endorsed recommendations could blunt the administration’s influence.

But that theory is far from certain.

“The next six months to a year will really tell us what the impacts of these changes are,” Romero said.

In the meantime, experts have focused on emphasizing the importance of the shots.

“The stronger a stance that we, the pediatricians, or the practice or the city or the state takes on getting vaccines, the better we are going to do keeping [disease] out of the state or our practice or our kids,” said Sean Palfrey, a retired pediatrician at Boston Medical Center.

Kennedy, though limited to changing policy at the federal level, has encouraged state leaders to embrace his Make America Healthy Again agenda.

Now, in the wake of the vaccine schedule change, states — which have the power to regulate which shots are required to attend public schools — could have the largest policy impact.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), for example, has moved to end school vaccine requirements entirely.

Democratically led states, on the other hand, have rejected Kennedy’s vaccine agenda, even creating new regional health authorities last year to guide vaccine policy. Some of those states, including Maryland and Minnesota, have moved to officially decouple their policies from federal guidance.

But unprecedented changes to the schedule have doctors concerned, in blue and red states alike.

“We’re significantly modifying a system that we know prevents death and disability,” Romero said. “This will have major impacts on children in the future.”

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