Trump Vaccine Schedule Overhaul: Cato Scholar Questions Evidence and Federal Role

“The Trump administration’s proposed changes to the childhood vaccine schedule illustrate the risks of allowing government recommendations to occupy a privileged position in medical decision-making. Some of the proposed changes also appear difficult to justify based on the available evidence. For example, evidence supports the safety and effectiveness of administering multiple vaccines during the same visit, and requiring parents to make additional visits could create unnecessary barriers to vaccination.”

“But the larger issue is who gets to decide. Changing administrations substitutes one set of government vaccine recommendations for another while preserving the government’s privileged role in medical decision-making.”

“When a federal public health agency issues a recommendation, the press, the public, insurers, and health care institutions understandably tend to treat it as especially authoritative. In some cases, federal law gives those recommendations additional consequences. Recommendations from independent medical and scientific organizations do not carry that same governmental imprimatur.”

“Government agencies can collect and publish public health data and make those data available to everyone. Independent professional and scientific organizations can evaluate the evidence, reach their own conclusions, and offer competing recommendations. Physicians and parents can then consider the evidence and those recommendations and make informed decisions about what is best for an individual child.”

“Medical knowledge advances through evidence, debate, and competing interpretations of that evidence. A pluralistic system of independent scientific organizations encourages that process while leaving medical decisions where they belong—with patients, parents, and their physicians.”