From AAP News:
The AAP continues to recommend vaccines to protect against 18 diseases in its 2026 immunization schedule released Jan. 26, which differs significantly from a federal schedule that underwent an arbitrary overhaul.
The AAP has been publishing its guidance on vaccines for decades. The updated AAP schedule, https://bit.ly/4pyyV5C, which is thoroughly researched and rooted in science, contains no changes to AAP’s recommendations for routine vaccines.
“As there is a lot of confusion going on with the constant new recommendations coming out of federal government, it is important that we have a stable, trusted, evidence-based immunization schedule to follow and that’s the AAP schedule,” said Pia Pannaraj, M.D., M.P.H., a member of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases (COID) and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Diego.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) schedule released in early January removed routine recommendations for hepatitis A and B, COVID-19, rotavirus, flu and meningococcal disease and downgrades them to immunizations recommended for high-risk groups and/or shared clinical decision-making. It also moved respiratory syncytial virus immunization to the high-risk group, although it still recommends it for all infants under 8 months whose mother did not get vaccinated during pregnancy.
Health officials did not cite new data justifying the changes but instead appear to have modeled the schedule largely after Denmark’s, which has a significantly different population and health care system. They also did not follow the standard process of consulting the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) during a public meeting.
AAP leaders called the CDC’s removal of universal recommendations “dangerous and unnecessary” and is challenging the changes in court. The AAP’s 2026 schedule keeps the routine recommendations intact.
