The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday that it will recommend fewer routine vaccines for most American children.
The change follows a directive from Donald Trump in December, who ordered federal health agencies to examine how peer-developed nations structure their childhood immunization schedules and whether the United States has fallen out of step with international best practices.
In his announcement, Trump decried the current U.S. schedule as a national outlier, with “far more than is necessary” required for healthy children.
“Today, the CDC Vaccine Committee made a very good decision to END their Hepatitis B Vaccine Recommendation for babies, the vast majority of whom are at NO RISK of Hepatitis B, a disease that is mostly transmitted sexually, or through dirty needles.
The American Childhood Vaccine Schedule long required 72 “jabs,” for perfectly healthy babies, far more than any other Country in the World, and far more than is necessary.
In fact, it is ridiculous! Many parents and scientists have been questioning the efficacy of this “schedule,” as have I!
That is why I have just signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Department of Health and Human Services to “FAST TRACK” a comprehensive evaluation of Vaccine Schedules from other Countries around the World, and better align the U.S. Vaccine Schedule, so it is finally rooted in the Gold Standard of Science and COMMON SENSE!
I am fully confident Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the CDC, will get this done, quickly and correctly, for our Nation’s Children. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAHA!”
Thank you, Mr. President. We’re on it. https://t.co/WNaTH73CXB
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) December 6, 2025
Under the revised framework, only 11 “consensus vaccines,” those widely recommended across developed nations, will remain universally recommended for all children.
These include vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Hib, pneumococcal disease, HPV, and varicella.
Several other vaccines, including influenza, COVID-19, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and meningococcal disease, will no longer be universally recommended for all children.
Instead, they will be administered based on individual risk factors or after consultation between parents and healthcare providers.
According to the decision memo, federal health officials acknowledged long-standing knowledge gaps in vaccine safety, particularly regarding long-term outcomes and cumulative exposure from administering dozens of doses during early childhood.
The document admits that many childhood vaccines were approved without large-scale randomized placebo-controlled trials and that post-licensure safety systems are limited, underutilized, and often incapable of detecting long-term or rare adverse events.
The memo explicitly cites documented serious harms — including myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, febrile seizures after MMRV, intussusception following rotavirus vaccination, and anaphylaxis linked to multiple vaccines — while noting that current surveillance systems are insufficient to fully assess long-term risks.
The memo also delivers a blunt rebuke of the CDC’s handling of COVID-19 vaccines, stating that unscientific claims about preventing infection and transmission severely damaged public trust, leading to declining uptake even for long-established childhood vaccines like MMR and polio.
As the report notes, while the CDC continued recommending COVID boosters for children, uptake fell below 10 percent.
The revised schedule mirrors approaches used in countries such as Denmark, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, where fewer vaccines are mandated, some are delayed, and others are offered only to high-risk groups.
For example:
- Several peer nations do not recommend routine meningococcal vaccination for all children due to extremely low incidence rates.
- Most countries do not recommend annual flu shots for all children.
- Denmark and other nations have already abandoned universal COVID vaccination for children.
HHS explicitly states that the “mere existence of a vaccine does not automatically justify universal vaccination” and that disease risk, age, and individual circumstances must be weighed, an approach long dismissed by U.S. health bureaucrats as “misinformation.”
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