{"id":824749,"date":"2026-08-25T00:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/824749\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:30:08","slug":"rfk-jr-may-upend-how-vaccine-recommendations-are-categorized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/824749\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. may upend how vaccine recommendations are categorized"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More specifically, the RFI asks the public to consider whether vaccine recommendations should be made with a \u201cpresumption in favor of individual autonomy and religious freedom.\u201d It also seeks input on how to handle recommendations when \u201crandomized controlled trial evidence is absent, infeasible, or unethical to obtain.\u201d This relates to a common attack Kennedy has made against childhood vaccines, in which he claims their safety and efficacy trials are flawed because they didn\u2019t test the vaccines against an inert placebo. Scientific and medical experts have largely dismissed this attack, noting that such trials are unnecessary, in many cases unethical, and in some cases the claim is just false. But it seems Kennedy may use it to justify making vaccine recommendations sound less definitive.<\/p>\n<p>As for what the new recommendation categories might be, the RFI gives special consideration to SCDM, which is currently used rarely. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vaccines\/media\/pdfs\/2025\/03\/2024-isd-job-aid-scdm-menb-508-remediated.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meningococcal B Vaccination<\/a> is one of the few vaccines with an SCDM recommendation. The RFI describes this type of recommendation as an \u201cintermediate category\u201d that \u201cprovides no default\u201d choice on a vaccination, avoiding a \u201cbinary choice between a universal recommendation and no recommendation at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis allows for an additional opportunity between patient and provider to discuss the state of the evidence and gives weight to the values and preferences of patients and parents\/guardians, including considerations of personal autonomy, informed consent, and religious conviction,\u201d the RFI reads. But it also notes that SCDM, when used, has raised confusion. The RFI asks the public to weigh in on potential future use.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, the RFI asks for other category options, providing a few ideas, including \u201crecommended, but not during infancy,\u201d \u201crecommended with qualification,\u201d or \u201cshared clinical decision-making with qualification.\u201d The document does not elaborate on what any of those categories might mean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More specifically, the RFI asks the public to consider whether vaccine recommendations should be made with a \u201cpresumption&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97],"class_list":["post-824749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}