STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The American Academy of Pediatrics says they will not follow the advice of the federal government. The federal Centers for Disease Control changed its vaccine recommendations for children. The government reduced the number of recommended vaccines for kids. The leading group of pediatric doctors says their recommendation will not change. So we've called Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Good morning, sir.
ANDREW RACINE: Good morning, Mr. Inskeep. Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: I believe you stick with 17 vaccines recommended for kids, right?
RACINE: More or less. That's right.
INSKEEP: What was your thinking there?
RACINE: Well, the thinking is that the reason we have these schedules of immunizations is to protect children from infectious diseases that are entirely preventable. And those infectious diseases haven't changed. The epidemiology hasn't changed. The risks to children haven't changed. And so, therefore, our recommendations haven't changed.
INSKEEP: I think you're telling me that the federal officials went on gut feeling or instinct, a ballpark estimate that maybe some of these vaccines were overkill. Is that what you're saying?
RACINE: Well, I'm not going to characterize the thinking with regard to the federal officials here. All I can say is that for many, many years, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the federal government have been in lockstep about the recommendations that we give for vaccines. And for reasons that you'd have to talk to the folks at the federal government about, they have decided to deviate from a standard that we know to be effective. I mean, we have no measles up until this year in the United States for a reason. There's no polio in this country for a reason. And the vaccines are the reason.
INSKEEP: Now, you just raised an interesting question because it's not that the polio vaccine is being unrecommended, as I understand it. But this is the kind of news that is driven by people who are broadly skeptical of vaccines and maybe encourages people to think twice about vaccines. Are you concerned about people just pulling away from vaccines entirely?
RACINE: Well, we are concerned about lower levels of vaccination uptake, and that's going to be an important thing because some of these diseases are unbelievably easy to communicate with one another. And so we have measles, for example, that is reemerging because unless you have vaccination rates up above 95%, you're going to see measles emerge. But this is something that is true for lots of these diseases. And so having vaccination rates high is important, and the misinformation that's flooding our airways now is something that's confusing for parents. The academy is here to try and cut through some of that confusion and make sure that the science is what people are depending upon to make their decisions.
INSKEEP: What would you say to a parent who just hears the number 17 and feels like, wow, that's really an awful lot of shots?
RACINE: Well, I think that that's - hasn't been anything that's changed over a long period of time. We have gradually increased the number of vaccines that we have been recommending for parents, and that's because the science has advanced and allowed us to protect children against more and more diseases. It sounds like it's a lot of vaccinations, and it takes place over a number of years, so that it's not that it happens all at once.
But the fact of the matter is that what children are exposed to every day in their lives is much, much greater in terms of the number of antigens than what we see in vaccines. And so vaccines are very important to try and protect children, and we think that this is probably the best schedule that we can come up with for the moment. As science changes, and as we get more vaccines that we can offer to children, we will. But there are some vaccines that we simply don't recommend because those diseases are not something that American children are exposed to.
INSKEEP: I've got one quick question about communication. Obviously, you hear what the CDC says. I'm curious if in the past, they've listened to you, by which I mean, has the CDC traditionally talked with the American Academy of Pediatrics about the vaccine recommendations, and are they doing so now?
RACINE: Absolutely, they have in the past. And that gets to the composition of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is the committee that essentially tells the CDC what the best recommendations are. For many, many years, the American Academy of Pediatrics has had representatives on those - on the working groups of that committee and has been very much in keeping with what the committee has been deliberating on. That has changed. It changed in the spring of last year when the advisory committee's composition was completely changed. Those work groups were disbanded. And so, currently, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not have input into the thinking that's going on at the ACIP.
INSKEEP: Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Thanks so much.
RACINE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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