By Karen Brown, New England Public Media, KFF Health News
AMHERST, Mass. — For the last 30 years, whenever pediatrician John Snyder wanted to find the most up-to-date recommendations on childhood immunizations, he turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public trust in the CDC has hit bumps in the road before, but for medical professionals, Snyder said, the agency’s guidance was long considered the gold standard.
That began to change after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as health secretary. Within months, Kennedy dismissed every member of the CDC’s vaccine advisory board and replaced them with new appointees. “It turned into a completely unreputable source of information,” Snyder said.
This rupture of scientific trust in the CDC has put many pediatricians like Snyder in a bind. On Jan. 5, the CDC removed some vaccines from the recommended schedule for all children, against the advice of major medical groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics. In March, after medical groups sued, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to revert to the previous guidelines. The administration has appealed.
The back-and-forth “creates a whole bunch of confusion in the public,” Snyder said. He’s trying to be clear with patients about what the evidence shows, even if that means directing them away from the CDC’s own website toward the American Academy of Pediatrics instead. “It’s shocking that we have to say that,” he said.
In the exam room, Snyder said he’s having more tense conversations with families. Some parents now refuse specific vaccines outright, citing distrust that they say has only grown since the CDC’s guidance became politicized. One mother told Snyder, “I’m a hard ‘no’ on the covid” vaccine for her teenage son, declining even to discuss it further. Afterward, she said she no longer knows whom to trust on vaccines. “I worry that it’s been politicized a lot, and I don’t like politics,” she said.
Such confusion inspired Snyder to join an independent vaccine information campaign called Valley Vax, which sidesteps the CDC entirely and instead points residents to professional medical organizations, including the AAP. “We wanted something that felt familiar and appealing and that they might be more likely to trust,” said organizer Kiko Malin, who said the campaign deliberately avoids directly criticizing the CDC.
Other health leaders are banding together similarly. At the state level, coalitions such as the West Coast Health Alliance and the Governors Public Health Alliance have formed to circulate evidence-based guidance. Locally, many public health departments, like Amherst’s, now direct residents to professional medical organizations rather than the CDC directly.
This article is from a partnership that includes New England Public Media, NPR, and KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF and KFF Health News.