Contrary to CDC changes, AAP advises vaccinating kids against 18 diseases
Just days before, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the
anti-vaccine group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr, said it had filed a lawsuit in US
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.”
Kennedy, who has long claimed that US children receive “too
many” vaccines, modeled the CDC’s new vaccination schedule after that of
Denmark, drawing criticism from medical experts who say the two countries have
different populations and public health needs.
CDC recommendations ‘depart from longstanding medical evidence’
In a policy statement published
today in Pediatrics, Sean O’ Leary, MD, MPH, who chairs the AAP’s
infectious disease committee, and colleagues wrote, “At this time, the AAP no
longer endorses the recommended childhood and adolescent immunization schedule
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
AAP’s routine childhood vaccine schedule includes those against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, and meningococcal disease, all of which are reserved in the CDC guidance for high-risk groups or “shared clinical decision-making.”
In a news release, the
AAP said, “Recent changes to the CDC immunization schedule depart from
longstanding medical evidence and no longer offer the optimal way to prevent
illnesses in children. By contrast, the AAP childhood and adolescent
immunization schedules continue to recommend immunizations based on the
specific disease risks and health care delivery in the United States.”
In a media briefing today, Andrew Racine, MD, PhD, president
of the AAP board of directors, noted that 12 leading professional
organizations, including the American Medical Association and the Infectious
Diseases Society of America, have endorsed the AAP immunization schedule.
For 95 years, “pediatricians have been guided by a single
overriding principle: The commitment to optimize the health and the well being
of all of this country's children,” he said. “That commitment has not changed.
It's who we are. What has changed is the environment around us, an environment
where health decisions are being increasingly politicized, and where pediatric,
clinical, and scientific expertise is being derided.”
Lawsuit mischaracterizes National Academy findings
In a news release, CHD claimed that the AAP violated
the Racketeeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by making
false claims about the safety of vaccines while receiving funding from vaccine
makers and financially rewarding pediatricians who achieve high
vaccination rates.
AAP “is a front operation in a racketeering scheme involving
Big Pharma, Big Medicine and Big Media, ready at every turn to put profits
above children’s health,” CHD CEO Mary Holland, JD, said in the release. “It’s
time to face facts and see what the AAP is really about.”
In the lawsuit, CHD alleges that the AAP has tried to
obscure the findings of comprehensive childhood immunization safety reviews
published by the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine),
including a paper on multiple immunizations and immune dysfunction in 2002 and one on scientific
findings and stakeholder concerns about vaccine safety published in 2013.
“The IOM called for more research after concluding that no
studies had ever been conducted to compare the health outcomes of vaccinated
and unvaccinated children,” CHD claimed.
However, that is a mischaracterization of the review
conclusions, which instead called for staying the course with continued policy
analysis, research, and communications strategy development in the absence of
adverse safety signals.
“The committee does not recommend a review by national and
federal vaccine-related advisory bodies of the licensure or schedule of
administration of the vaccines administered to infants in the United States on
the basis of concerns about immune dysfunction,” the authors of the 2002 review
wrote.
Similarly, the 2013 review concluded that, “The lack of
conclusive evidence linking adverse events to multiple immunizations or other
‘schedule, exposures suggests that the recommended schedule is safe.”
The lawsuit seeks financial damages for the individual
plaintiffs and asks the court to mandate that the AAP disclose the “lack of
comprehensive safety testing” of vaccines, and prevent the AAP from making
“further unqualified safety claims” about vaccines, CHD said.
