Pediatricians warn of growing fears among Medicaid families as new CDC advisors raise uncertainty over routine childhood immunization coverage.
United States: Over twenty years, Lanre Falusi, a pediatrician in the District of Columbia, has been discussing the safety of vaccines, side effects, and timing with parents. However, conversations have been different this year, she said.
Pediatricians across the country report having very worried parents worried about the availability of routine childhood immunizations, particularly parents with children on Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health insurance to low-income families and individuals with disabilities.
More about the news
In the US, Medicaid covers 4 out of 10 children. The issue has gained momentum since the rearrangement of a major Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee in June, taking place after the contentious rejection of a Trump coronavirus vaccine might cost the US millions of households an out-of-pocket shot, now covered by their insurance program.
The Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was an anti-vaccine activist, dismissed all 17 members of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the group that advises the government on shots to be included in the childhood and adult immunization schedules.
Kennedy has changed the panelists with new ones who share his orientation, which raised concern among the medical community and public health analysts.
Throughout the U.S., pediatricians say anxious parents are concerned about access to routine childhood immunizations. The concern grew after the shake-up of a key CDC vaccine advisory body in June. https://t.co/leaSA1W2Nt
— Global Health NOW (@ghn_news) July 25, 2025
According to Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of the Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured at KFF, a national health information nonprofit, “People should be worried about what’s going to happen to the availability of vaccines for children,” KFF Health News reported.
With the Affordable Care Act, the health insurers are obligated to cover all ACIP-recommended vaccines.
The children’s vaccine schedule is used by states and other jurisdictions to establish immunization requirements for schoolchildren.
The specific vaccines covered by the Vaccines for Children Program are also based on the recommendations of ACIP.
The Vaccines for Children Program is a CDC-funded program that offers free immunizations to children with low-income credentials and without insurance, as CNN Health reported.
One-half of children in the US are eligible for the VFC program. Tolbert said that should the new members of the ACIP withdraw their support for a certain vaccine, and with the consent of the director of the CDC, the effects shall be felt immediately.
“It would automatically affect what is covered and therefore which vaccines are available to children on Medicaid,” she said.