How RFK Jr. Could Undermine Vaccines and Why your Pediatrician is Panicking

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

It’s February 2025 and anything is possible. And unfortunately, I don’t mean that in a “reach for the stars” kind of way. I mean it in a “governing norms don’t exist anymore” kind of way. And with the ascension of non-scientist, vaccine conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. to Secretary of Health and Human Services I am deeply troubled by what this means for the health of our nation, and more specifically, the health of America’s 73 million children.

Acknowledging that anything is possible, I can’t say with certainty that RFK Jr. isn’t planning to ban vaccines outright. I do think that is unlikely, though. So why are pediatricians panicking if he likely won’t ban vaccines? Because we know that disinformation, particularly when disseminated from the highest levels of the federal government, is incredibly powerful. And we know that vaccine skepticism was a growing problem in the US (and beyond) long before RFK Jr was on the government’s payroll. I am worried RFK Jr.’s confirmation is the equivalent of dumping kerosene on the fire.

Full disclosure: my pediatrician colleagues and I must take some responsibility for rising rates of vaccine hesitancy. We need to learn how to be better communicators. We need to learn how to speak up. We need to not be dismissive of parental concerns or cultural trends, even if we know the science is clear. It’s on us to communicate that. “Trust us” isn’t cutting it.

As a pediatrician involved in the education of medical students and residents, I am 100% in support of healthy skepticism. Trust but verify. As physicians, if we aren’t skeptical, we risk anchoring to an incorrect diagnosis, we risk overlooking a patient’s symptoms because one of our consultants told us not to worry about it, we risk missing an abnormal lab result because someone told us “the labs were normal,” we risk missing key parts of a patient’s history because we trust what another provider told us, without verifying the information ourselves. Skepticism is a huge part of the daily clinical practice of medicine. Skepticism is healthy. Skepticism of science is healthy.

So why isn’t pediatrician skepticism of vaccines growing along with patient skepticism of vaccines? Aren’t we susceptible to disinformation too? Didn’t I just say skepticism is an important part of the clinical practice of medicine? Pediatricians aren’t skeptical of vaccines because we have been trained how to interpret clinical trial data. Because we understand epidemiology and biostatistics. We know that data is the answer to skepticism. In the absence of clear data we must remain skeptical. But when it comes to vaccines we (thankfully) have an abundance of clear data supporting the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

Contrary to popular belief, we don’t just blindly trust vaccine recommendations (no matter if they come from pharmaceutical companies, the CDC, or our professional medical organizations). We verify FIRST by reviewing the evidence ourselves. And disinformation can’t spread in an appropriately informed ecosystem.

So back to what RFK Jr. could do to escalate the growing problem of vaccine hesitancy, vaccine refusal, waning herd immunity and the resurgence of preventable infectious diseases. Banning vaccines outright would be an incredibly aggressive move, one that would likely receive immediate and INTENSE backlash. Unfortunately for us, the Secretary has many other paths to undermining Americans’ confidence in vaccines, many of which were outlined in this excellent NPR article. The TL:DR here is that RFK Jr. has the power to undermine/overhaul/completely disrupt the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. They can change which vaccines insurance companies cover (and we all know money talks). They can replace scientist/physician members of the committee with political appointees (what could go wrong). They can divert valuable research funding from worthy projects (like finding a cure for Alzheimer's or Parkinson’s or breast cancer) to answer scientific questions we already have the answer to (and this hurts us all). They can do incredible damage to the vaccination program in the US without ever “banning” a single vaccine.

Congratulations measles, polio, diphtheria et al., it’s about to be your moment to shine.

If Kennedy and Trump take this approach, by targeting ACIP, or put any significant effort into sowing additional distrust in vaccines, the consequences will be dire and it will take decades for our public health systems (and our children' s health) to recover. And just since I started writing this, it seems all signs point towards an incoming direct attack on our vaccine schedule.

And this is why your pediatrician is panicking. I just hope amidst the panic we (pediatricians) understand it’s our responsibility to combat this public health threat. It’s time for us to lead, to find new ways to communicate, to do everything we can to fight for truth, science and our kids.