Why it matters: Kids’ health is at stake at a time when vaccine-preventable diseases are on the rise and trust in public health institutions is already low.

State of play: Doctors and health systems are ignoring the Trump administration’s new and narrower childhood vaccine recommendations and sticking to the old schedule.

• Coalitions of blue states and local health officials are also rejecting the changes, which dropped six shots — including those for the flu, rotavirus and hepatitis — from the recommended list and instead urged parents to consult providers about the shots.
• At least 19 states have said they won’t follow the new CDC schedule and will instead follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations, which continue to call for the same immunizations CDC did before Trump’s current term.
• And more than 200 medical, public health and patient advocacy groups signed onto a letter urging Congress to investigate the schedule changes. Some — including the American Academy of Pediatrics — are suing to reverse them.

What they’re saying: “This is the first time in memory that parents aren’t able to count on federal health agencies to provide evidence-based vaccine recommendations,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and the Vaccine Integrity Project.

Between the lines: The Trump administration has stressed that all of the previously recommended vaccines will still be covered by insurance, and that whoever wants them will be able to get them.

• But parents now are in the unfamiliar position of deciding whether their child should receive certain vaccinations, which necessitates choosing which authority figures they’ll listen to.
• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming health secretary — has suggested that parents figure it out themselves.

Keep reading

Why it matters: The bipartisan sentiment shows that efforts to find new cures still have strong support on Capitol Hill after a turbulent year for the agency.

Driving the news: The health care portion of the spending package released early Tuesday includes $48.7 billion for NIH — an increase of $415 million, and a far cry from the roughly 40% cut in President Trump’s budget request.

• There’s also language aimed at limiting a Trump administration policy that funded multiple years of a grant all at once. Critics say the policy reduced the number of awards made.
• The spending bill would also keep language blocking NIH from imposing a 15% cap on research universities and institutions’ overhead and administrative costs.
• Beyond NIH, it would additionally revive a program that prioritizes reviews of treatments for rare pediatric diseases that expired in part at the end of 2024 and was left out of subsequent funding packages.

Yes, but: NIH grant cancellations, program cuts and other unilateral moves by the administration are unlikely to stop.

Read more

from AXIOS:

Charted: The big measles surge

By Adriel Bettelheim

Data: CDC; Chart: Axios Visuals This chart shows what it looks like to hit a 30-year high in measles cases — and why the U.S. is on track to lose its measles “elimination status.” Why it matters: We’ve all heard that cases are on the rise, but the reality is that they’re skyrocketing. It started with an outbreak in West Texas, and now infections are reported in nine states and hundreds are in quarantine due to a major surge in South Carolina. More than 9 out of 10 cases were among unvaccinated people or those with unknown vaccination status, per the CDC. What they’re saying: On Tuesday, Ralph Abraham, a top CDC official, told reporters that the end of the measles elimination status in the U.S. would be “just the cost of doing business, with our borders being somewhat porous [and] global and international travel,” Stat reported. What we’re watching: The risk of spillover increased with holiday travel. North Carolina and Ohio reported infected individuals who traveled to the outbreak epicenter in South Carolina. Share this