Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has joined President Donald Trump in a renewed effort to challenge how the United States formulates its childhood vaccine recommendations.
In a Request for Information (RFI) posted on Friday and published Monday in the Federal Register, Kennedy has asked for public comment over the next 30 days on whether vaccine classifications should be adjusted.
The RFI includes a lengthy rehashing of U.S. vaccine recommendations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how “public trust in Federal public health agencies declined measurably.”
“The durability of any vaccine recommendation framework depends on the public’s trust in the process that produces it,” Kennedy wrote. “Trust is essential both to public health objectives and to effective, informed individual choice.”
The RFI comes two weeks after Trump signed an executive order that called for reducing the number of childhood vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 17 to 11. He added that decisions “should be aligned with scientific evidence and best practices from peer, developed countries.”
