Vaccines are a ‘hot topic’ for CT pediatricians. Why they are for legislators and many parents too

Hartford Courant – Thursday, January 29, 2026
By Kaitlin McCallum

Amid the widening schism between state and federal health policy, Connecticut officials are considering codifying long-standing childhood vaccination recommendations, while pediatricians are enforcing them in their own way.

Some families, however, are appealing to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to intervene in Connecticut’s vaccine mandates, which are some of the strictest in the country.

Following an order from President Donald Trump to reevaluate federal childhood vaccine recommendations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced the number of recommended vaccines for all children from 17 to 11. A CDC fact sheet on the decision says the change “allows for more flexibility and choice, with less coercion.”

Acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill noted it will improve “public confidence,” which the CDC said has eroded since 2020, coinciding with “falling childhood vaccination rates and increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

The agency promised redoubled study of vaccine safety, though public health experts say all recommended vaccines have been exhaustively proven.

Kennedy said the change is for “strengthening transparency and informed consent. This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics published its 2026 vaccine schedule largely unchanged from 2025, calling the federal changes “dangerous and unnecessary.”

The AAP and other medical groups have filed a lawsuit, first on a new COVID vaccine policy and now on the childhood vaccine schedule.

In an open letter Jan. 9, the AAP and 200 state and national organizations urged Congress to intervene to protect vaccine access.

“The confusion and chaos caused by these changes may make parents doubt the benefits of vaccines and delay or skip these vaccines for their children, with devastating and foreseeable impacts,” the letter said.

State policy

That’s the fear state officials have expressed over the change: both that the changing guidance will confuse parents, leading to lower vaccination rates, and that lower vaccination rates will undermine herd immunity that protects immunocompromised people and children too young to get vaccinated against serious diseases.

Following the CDC announcement, state Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani, MD, issued a statement, saying “Connecticut has serious concerns about the recent changes to the national childhood vaccine schedule.

“Scaling back those recommendations risks creating confusion, placing more burden on parents and clinicians, and making preventive care harder to navigate. Other countries’ vaccine schedules reflect their own health systems and disease patterns, and a one-size-fits-another-country approach does not reflect the realities facing children in the United States. Connecticut will continue to support evidence-based recommendations designed to protect children and the communities we serve,” she said.

Juthani has said Connecticut will hold to the previous CDC recommended vaccine schedule, still endorsed by AAP, for school entrance. The state statute relies on both the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which has recommended fewer vaccines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians, which has not.

The law empowers the commissioner of public health “to determine the standard of care for immunization for the children of this state.”

Leaders of the legislature’s Public Health Committee, Sen. Saud Anwar and Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey, confirmed the committee will consider a bill regarding the vaccine schedule for the session that begins Feb. 4.

Connecticut eliminated a religious exemption for required childhood vaccines beginning in September 2022, leaving only an exemption for limited medical reasons. The mandate means that all children must be vaccinated according to the recommended vaccine schedule to enter schools, day cares and some higher education programs. A legal challenge to the law ended in June 2024 when the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

With the elimination of the religious exemption, 98.3% of Connecticut kindergarten students received the required measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the 2024–2025 school year — the highest in the country at a time when national rates are falling, the state Department of Public Health has said. State data puts Diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTAP); Varicella; Hepatitis A; and Hepatitis B over 98% as well, despite a recent sharp increase in medical exemptions.

Pediatricians

The new federal guidance doesn’t limit vaccine access or insurance coverage but empowers parents in partnership with their pediatrician to decide which vaccines are appropriate for their children, Kennedy said.

But while explaining the safety and purpose of vaccines is routine for Connecticut pediatricians, for many, whether kids receive them is not always up for debate. Across the state, many pediatric practices have adopted a vaccine mandate of their own: If parents refuse to have their children vaccinated according to the recommended schedule (previously recommended by CDC and AAP), they are not welcome at the practice.

Dr. Magna Dias, chair of pediatrics at Bridgeport Hospital, said whether to see children whose parents decline vaccinations is a “hot topic right now” among pediatricians in Connecticut. She said there are two arguments, whether “we should be seeing all children” when vaccines were declined, and, that all kids “simply need good care” regardless of vaccine status.

Doctors wonder, if they accept unvaccinated patients, are they “endorsing that behavior” and are they “protecting my other patients in my practice,” or possibly exposing other patients to serious disease, including those who could be immuno-compromised, Dias said.

She said some pediatricians will spend time in a first visit sharing that they believe strongly in vaccines, and will still see you for a certain number of visits and if you still decline, they will ask to find another doctor.

“It is not a black and white issue, it is really up to the individual practice,” she said.

Dias noted that federally qualified health clinics accept patients regardless of vaccine status.

She said her hope is that parents are developing a relationship with their child’s pediatrician, and lean on their pediatrician, “so they can understand why these vaccinations are so important.”

Dr. David Muccino, MD MPH, of Rocky Hill Pediatrics, said that practice has had a policy in place for more than four years requiring families to follow the former CDC schedule.

“Our practice will continue to follow the AAP guidelines,” Muccino said. “We are not changing our schedule, the main reason being that it’s based on decades of research, on efficacy and safety.”

That the federal government would seek to emulate Denmark, which immunizes against just 10 diseases, fails to account for the different public health infrastructure and other factors.

“We see different diseases and there have been certain disease outbreak in Europe that we have not seen in the United States” due to vaccination, he said. “Some countries are moving to emulate United States guidelines — Ireland, New Zealand, other developed countries.”

The new federal guidelines are already causing confusion for parents, he said, and he expects to see it erode parents’ confidence.

“We are already getting questions just this week on a daily basis asking us if we are planning to change our vaccine schedule, mainly parents hoping we will not change our schedule.”

Muccino echoed a quote he’d heard a Yale doctor say: “Vaccines have done more to lower the morbidity and mortality of children than anything we collectively do as pediatricians otherwise.”

Anti-vaccine families

The vaccine requirement is the subject of hundreds of comments on Facebook threads in Connecticut mom groups, with many saying they were forced to homeschool their children because they couldn’t register them for school. Others are searching for pediatricians who will see their children without requiring they follow the schedule. They decry what they say is tyranny that strips medical freedom, religious liberty and parental rights.

Kate Prokop, president and founder CT Residents Against Medical Mandates, said she represents more than 20,000 people concerned about vaccine mandates in Connecticut. That number swelled during the pandemic, she said, and for those families who refuse vaccines, the issue is pervasive.

“The experiences I mainly see on a weekly basis are people not being able to put their kids into school … people can’t find medical doctors because only about 3-5% of doctors in the state for child care will see patients off the schedule. Naturopathic doctors can now be primary care in the state of Connecticut but they don’t accept insurance so it can be very costly. A lot of people have left the state,” she said, equating the issue to discrimination.

“My family was personally impacted … we’ve been fighting hard not just for my family but for future generations — I don’t want to have to deal with this in 10-15 years for my grandkids. There are so many kids who are medically compromised and can’t get exemptions,” Prokop said, mentioning a mother of a child with cancer who doesn’t want her other children vaccinated.

Medical exemptions are difficult to get, she said, but after a recent surge in number, officials plan to scrutinize them. Prokop said she fears even medical exemptions for vaccines will become impossible to get.

She has appealed to Secretary Kennedy to intervene.

In a Jan. 7 letter to Kennedy, Trump and other officials, Prokop wrote to “formally request federal review and intervention regarding the public health actions in Connecticut, that are openly rejecting updated federal public health guidance while continuing to accept federal funding for childhood vaccine programs.”

In the letter, she warns Kennedy that Connecticut is at risk of codifying the previous CDC vaccine schedule, which would further limit parental discretion and tighten “a closed and coercive medical environment.” She suggests leveraging federal funding, as Trump has done in many arenas to impose his will.

“While immunization policy is largely administered at the state level, federal authority over public-health funding remains clear. States cannot reasonably reject federal guidance, undermine parental medical autonomy, and impose discriminatory practices while continuing to rely on federal resources to sustain those same systems,” the letter says.

Prokop said the decision to move away from federal health guidance under a conservative administration is politically motivated.

“All the left leaning states are creating their own regional CDCs and they don’t have the funding to do their own research. They’ve always used the federal government as justification for the schedule and it’s weird that they would now pivot because they don’t like who’s running the country,” she said.

“I think people want a choice. Connecticut has the most aggressive immunization schedule in the country … so a lot of people are very angry about that and once it’s codified into law, it’s going to be very hard to remove.”

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