Washington D.C. – Last U.S. flu season was among the most severe for children and teens in more than 15 years, including at least 191 pediatric deaths. Vaccines remain the safest and most effective way of averting flu-related hospitalizations and deaths ahead of next season. As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes: “A recent study in Pediatrics by CDC experts found that vaccines reduce the risk of children and teens dying from flu by 80%. In a separate analysis, the CDC estimates flu vaccines prevented nearly 15,000 hospitalizations and 245 deaths in children and teens in the 2024-’25 season.”
Clear and strong fall respiratory virus vaccine guidance is needed now from the Trump CDC given that “historically, about 85% of children who died of flu were not vaccinated,” and that “just 49% of children got vaccinated last season.”
Yet, the CDC has refused to do its job, failing to release its recommendations as it had done by this time last year – in large part because the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) never held its scheduled meetings in March or June. Donald Trump and health secretary RFK Jr. have deliberately kept ACIP in limbo by appealing a federal court’s freeze on Kennedy’s likely illegal overhaul of the committee with “distinctly unqualified” and mostly anti-vax picks.
“The longer the Trump CDC drags its feet on flu and COVID vaccine guidance, the more confusion it stirs, the fewer Americans get safely inoculated, and the more kids and seniors wind up in the hospital – a final destination for many,” said Brad Woodhouse, President of Protect Our Care. “Donald Trump and RFK Jr. would rather keep waging war in federal court to pack ACIP with fellow anti-vaxxers than do the bare minimum to inform the public about the latest life-saving vaccines that their own FDA approved. On top of Trump’s new executive order designed to scare parents away from the measles vaccine, it’s all part of the administration’s agenda to make preventable diseases great again. In Trump’s deluded mind, he thinks he’s a hero for dragging down vaccination rates over made-up and debunked vaccine risks, when really he’s only getting more kids needlessly killed.”
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