When Dr. Deborah Lehman did her medical training about 40 years ago, cases of bacterial meningitis were common, often sending patients to the hospital, leaving them neurologically impaired and, in severe cases, killing them.

Meningitis cases are now extremely uncommon because of the widespread use of three immunizations, said Lehman, a clinical professor of pediatrics at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. However, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an overhaul of its childhood vaccination schedule Jan. 5, removing the three meningococcal vaccinations – as well as three others – from its recommended list of immunizations.

The new schedule recommends vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella; whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria; the bacterial disease Hib, or Haemophilus influenzae type b; pneumonia; polio; HPV, or human papillomavirus; and chickenpox. Six immunizations – including those for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and rotavirus – are no longer universally recommended.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has publicly expressed skepticism about vaccines – said in a press release that two government officials created recommendations based on the vaccination practices of other “peer, developed nations.” Their assessment, published Jan. 2, was written in response to a Dec. 5 memorandum by President Trump, which directed the HHS and CDC to update the schedule if they found more effective immunization strategies used by other nations.

“Because we’ve eliminated so many of these infectious diseases, some people don’t understand how tragic they can be, and they feel that maybe a vaccine is not as necessary as it really is,” Lehman said. “By removing vaccines from the routine schedule … it really telegraphs or transmits a message to families, to parents, to the public, that these vaccines are not essential.”

This decision was made without input from vaccination experts and medical professional organizations, said Dr. Nava Yeganeh, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine.

“There was no modeling done of how these decisions would change our disease burden in this country, so it’s really hard to consider that these might be valid recommendations,” she added.

While the CDC’s childhood and adolescent schedule recommended 17 immunizations for all children, the revised schedule recommends that all children are immunized against only 11 diseases.

Childhood vaccinations are crucial for disease prevention because of the difficulty of vaccinating adult populations, said Dr. Jaime Deville, a clinical professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine.

“That’s really the best opportunity that we have for prevention of disease,” Deville said. “Many diseases have been effectively eradicated – like polio, tetanus and diphtheria.”

Before the rotavirus vaccination was available, about three million children contracted the virus every year, Lehman said. She added that, while cases are uncommon now, she also frequently encountered infants with rotavirus diarrhea during her medical training about 40 years ago.

The new schedule organizes vaccinations into three groups: immunizations recommended for all children, immunizations recommended for certain high-risk groups and populations and immunizations based on shared clinical decision-making.

This organization could place strain on care providers who will need to determine which categories their patients fall into, Lehman said. It could be difficult to determine which children are most at-risk for some diseases, as many of the children who died following influenza infection were considered healthy, she added.

The new vaccination schedule is intended to align with Denmark’s, according to the Washington Post. Denmark – which has a population of about six million – recommends routine childhood immunizations against 10 diseases, but, unlike the U.S., provides universal healthcare and paid parental leave.

Deville said this vaccination model is inadequate for use in the U.S. because of the countries’ differing populations, epidemiologies and climates.

The assessment that led to the creation of the new schedule also cited vaccination safety concerns as reasoning for removing vaccines.

Systems evaluating vaccine safety, including the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and Vaccine Safety Datalink, have been effective in identifying rare vaccine-related negative health outcomes, Yeganeh said.

“If the government is interested in creating more robust research, I would really hope that they would fund the research,” she said.

All vaccinations previously recommended by the CDC were still fully covered by Affordable Care Act insurance plans and federal insurance programs, including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Vaccines for Children program, as of Dec. 31, 2025, according to an HHS fact sheet.

The American Academy of Pediatrics offers evidence-based vaccination recommendations aligned with past CDC guidance, which pediatricians and patients can follow, Yeganeh added. The vaccinations recommended by the AAP will be covered by health insurance plans regulated in California, according to the California Department of Public Health website.

Parents can also ask their medical professionals for reliable information, Lehman said.

“We want to keep children safe, and this is how we know we can do it,” she said. “We hope that they will turn to us for making those important decisions about their children’s health.”