Consider This from NPR - When it comes to vaccines, how are pediatricians restoring trust?

Episode Date: July 6, 2025

If you're a parent, decisions about vaccines have gotten a lot more confusing recently. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s health department is walking back longstanding recommendations. NPR's Pien Huang speaks with a pediatrician and a vaccine researcher to discuss how the changes may affect public health - and how frontline conversations are going between pediatricians and families.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.nprth.org.Email us at [e-mail]. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. entered office with the stated goal of making America healthy again. We cannot have a strong country if we have six citizens. He said that means restoring public trust in vaccines. And I'll tell you how to start taking vaccine safety seriously. Consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms. To do so, he fired all the members of a key group that recommends vaccines, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. And we're gonna bring people onto the ACIP panel,

not any vaxxers. We're bringing people on who are credentialed scientists, who are highly credentialed physicians, who are gonna do evidence-based medicine. Kennedy handpicked seven new members for the committee, which included Dr. Robert Malone, who has spread vaccine misinformation before. And when the new committee members met at the end of June to discuss the vaccine schedule for kids, things got pretty contentious. Frankly, if you'll forgive the coaching, the slide that lists a series of...

That's Dr. Robert Malone, a newly appointed member of ACIP. We would be preferable if that was structured in a way that we really knew what all of those 65 analyses were. He was questioning CDC medical officer Dr. Sarah Meyer, who was giving a presentation on how the agency is continuing to make sure that COVID vaccines are safe. We have looked at our data a number of different ways and I'll try to walk through some of that. It was a highly unusual moment that highlighted the tension between long-time vaccine experts

like Dr. Meyer and Kennedy's new guard, many without that deep expertise, who question whether vaccines are safe. What I can say is based on our comprehensive approach to looking forwards and backwards and sideways to try to figure out, you know, are there any adverse events that we're missing after COVID-19 vaccination, myocarditis and then common reactions found with all vaccines is what we have found. Consider this. The CDC is reconsidering long-standing vaccine guidance

and it's raising major questions for patients and medical providers. Coming up, a pediatrician and a vaccine researcher discuss how these changes might affect public health. From NPR, I'm Ping Huang. From NPR, I'm Ping Huang. Hey, everybody. It's Ian from How to Do Everything. On our show, we attempt to answer your how-to questions.

We don't know how to do anything, so we call experts. Last season, both Tom Hanks and Martha Stewart stopped by to help. Our next season is launching in just a few months, so get us your questions now by emailing howto at npr.org or calling 1-800-424-2935. What would you think if you saw a robot dog out for a walk in your neighborhood? What the hell is that? Oh my god. This is Basha. She's hanging out with us. Basha, she's hanging out with us. Okay. So could I have a medium... Double takes and how they can change your point of view. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.

It's considered this from NPR. The CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is walking back longstanding vaccine recommendations, including the one recommending universal COVID vaccines for kids and pregnant women. Kennedy says these moves are designed to restore public trust in vaccines, but doctors' groups say they undermine it. That puts a lot of folks in a confusing situation to navigate. To help us better understand what's going on and where we go from here, we've called pediatrician Dr. Alexandra Svjanovich and Professor Jason L. Schwartz from the Yale School of Public

Health. Thank you both for joining us. Great to be with you. Thank you for having us. Sounds like there's a lot that is still up in the air. Jason, what are some of the biggest changes that you've seen recently when it comes to vaccines? You know, what we've seen really since the inauguration back in January is week after week, new announcements, new personnel changes, new decisions, new messages that call into question how the federal government views the safety and effectiveness

of vaccines. And we've seen it most recently with the expert advisors to the CDC, that Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that met recently, that for 60 years been really the gold standard source for shaping national vaccination policy. The entire membership of the committee was dismissed several weeks ago by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, replaced with a new group of members who are deeply skeptical, deeply doubting of the evidence supporting the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. They made that loud and clear at their initial meeting, and they've signaled an agenda that will continue to emphasize their views regarding the value and benefits

of vaccines that they appear to think have been overstated and the harms of vaccines that they appear to think have been understated. So I think we're getting a signal of a major shift in how we talk about and hear about vaccines from our federal government continuing in the months ahead. Dr. Svijanovic, has anything actually changed so far in terms of what kids and adults have access to in this moment? No, it has not changed on a street level at this point. There's definitely a lot of uncertainty right now around where the policies of vaccines are going, but the actual CDC recommendation for kids and pregnant women to get COVID vaccines

has gone from a universal recommendation, you know, everyone should be getting it to, I believe it's changed to like a shared decision making recommendation. Is that, is that your understanding of it? Yes, that is my understanding. That is correct. Can you talk a little bit about shared decision making? Like how is that different than the recommendation for just everyone to get it? talk a little bit about shared decision-making? Like how is that different than the recommendation for just everyone to get it? The shared decision-making is a trend which in some cases is, I think it's an important thing to do. As a pediatrician, I talk to my families about the need for vaccines and

they ultimately have the final decision. But when the recommendation is not a universal recommendation that every child and all pregnant women should get the vaccine, it does allow for more discussion in terms of, is it truly safe? Like, why is this no longer a universal recommendation? Why are we being told that not everybody has to get this? So I think the shared decision-making option ends up sowing doubt in terms of the need for vaccines

for these patient populations. So I think it further complicates the picture. Jason, you've studied how public trust in vaccines has gone up and down in the past. And I'm wondering, from those past experiences, what has improved it? And are things heading in that direction right now? Sure, I think what we've seen when individuals

have doubts or concerns or questions or a lack of trust in public health recommendations or vaccines in particular, what moves the needle is not a public service announcement or a snazzy website from a public health organization, but it really is the kinds of recommendations and clarity and empathy from a healthcare provider, a pediatrician or another physician, for example, who a family knows, can relate to, can talk to, can try and seek clarity. So I think that will, if there is a path to overcome all of this turbulence that we've

been speaking about, it will really come from the frontline healthcare providers who can sit down and can try and help sort through the noise, help see what the evidence points to and can help little by little try and reverse, I think, the confusion that we're seeing here. But that is a long and challenging hill, particularly in the face of so much attention being given in many cases to see their long refuted or discredited vaccine safety hypotheses or inaccuracies regarding the benefits of vaccines. There's a megaphone coming that is amplifying, I think, questions about vaccines that it

will be very challenging to undermine, but I think it will begin with those frontline healthcare providers. Dr. Svjanovich, I'm wondering if you can describe a situation with a patient who is confused. How would you direct them in this particular time and place? Yes, I can bring up a specific conversation I had with a family just a couple of weeks ago where this is a family who has not been immunizing

their now toddler. And at the 12 month well child check, we generally do a few vaccines. And one of the vaccines we traditionally do at this checkup is the measles vaccine. And I know this family and I said, you know, I understand that you haven't been vaccinating your child until now, but I do think that I would like you to consider the measles vaccine very seriously because we are seeing measles in our community and it is an extremely dangerous disease that can cause long-term effects. And we know that the vaccine is effective and it has been around a long time. And I would really appreciate it if you considered protecting your child against the

measles virus. And the parents said, well, I absolutely do not want that vaccine because I don't want any mRNA vaccines. And I explained that currently the COVID vaccine is the only mRNA vaccine that we use and that the measles vaccine is not an mRNA type vaccine. And the father said, that's not true. That's not what I've read. And you don't know that they haven't changed the measles vaccine into an mRNA vaccine. And so I am battling this type of information. And it is a very challenging thing. Jason, what do you make of Dr. Svijanovic's example? Do you think that this is what you're

talking about in terms of how trust can be restored? Exactly. That often we think that folks who have doubts or questions of vaccines may be sort of really committed opponents or critics, the kinds of folks that we have sometimes see on the news or protesting vaccines. And while those represent a portion of individuals who have reservations around vaccines, it's far more common for individuals like the family we just heard about who have questions or concerns, maybe there's some confusion, maybe there's some factual misunderstanding. And by and large, we know from research that families who have reservations around vaccines overwhelmingly are trying to figure out what to do for their children, how to best take care of their children, and providing a venue

where hopefully doubts and questions and concerns can be clarified is exactly the kind of setting that can address concerns, maybe not all the time, but certainly sometimes. I do feel like when I talk to my families who are hesitant about vaccines, the best part of my job is watching their child grow up and be a healthy, successful person. And there is so much information out there. And one of my jobs that I take extremely seriously is making sure that I am always current on vaccines and current safety profiles of all the vaccines. And I do stress with these families that, you know,

you trust me to take care of your child when they're sick and at their most vulnerable. I take that trust very seriously. So when I tell a family that I believe that this vaccine is safe for your child to take, that is not a sentence I say lightly. I feel responsible because they are placing their most treasured possession in my hands, literally and figuratively.

That's pediatrician Dr. Alexandra Svianovich in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Professor Jason L. Schwartz from the Yale School of Public Health. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. This episode was produced by Michelle Aslam and Avery Keatley. It was edited by Tinbeat Ermias. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan.

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