Public health experts in Maine said they are worried about the potential fallout after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday changed the childhood immunization schedule, reducing the number of vaccinations recommended for all children.

While vaccines will remain accessible, the move has been widely panned by doctors, scientists and infectious disease experts, who have criticized the federal agency for not conducting a public scientific review.

“Parents are going to be getting mixed messages because of these sudden changes to the vaccine schedule that had been established for years and years,” Dr. Laura Faherty, a Portland pediatrician and an official with the Maine chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in an interview Tuesday. “I am certain we are going to see decreases in vaccine coverage and increases in diseases and hospitalizations.”

Under the new schedule, the U.S. CDC will continue to recommend routine vaccination for 11 diseases, including measles, mumps, varicella, polio and pertussis. Other vaccines, including those for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease, COVID-19, influenza and rotavirus, will no longer be universally recommended for all children. These vaccines will be recommended for high-risk groups or after consultation with a medical professional.

Insurance will still cover all childhood vaccinations, which will continue to be available at no cost to families, according to the U.S. CDC.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has said it’s not changing its vaccination schedule. Lindsay Hammes, a spokesperson for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement that the state will continue to follow the pediatric association’s childhood vaccine recommendations.

“Due diligence was not done” before the U.S. CDC altered the vaccine schedule, Dr. James Jarvis, clinical education director for Northern Light Health, said in an interview on Tuesday. Fewer children will be protected as a result, he said.

“Children will die unnecessarily because of these diseases,” Jarvis said. “It’s completely preventable.”

In one example, Jarvis said the meningitis vaccine, typically given in middle or high school, prevents lifelong symptoms that can result from contracting the infection, which can be fatal.

None of the vaccines taken off the list by the U.S. CDC on Monday is included among the immunizations required by Maine to attend school.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration’s health secretary, an anti-vaccine proponent, said in a statement on Monday that “after an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent.”

The decision to change the vaccine schedule resulted from a review of Denmark and 19 other peer nations that do not have as many routine childhood immunizations as the U.S., the Department of Health and Human Services said in a news release on Monday.

Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University, told NBC News that the changes are the “most significant weakening of childhood vaccine recommendations” in “modern American history.”

Matt Wellington, associate director of the Maine Public Health Association, said countries have different needs, and comparing Denmark to the United States for a vaccine schedule “doesn’t make sense.”

“This decision seems to be driven by political ideology,” Wellington said.

Faherty, the Portland pediatrician, said she feels like “the rug has been pulled out from under us.” There is no new evidence that would justify alterations to the childhood vaccination schedule, she said.

“What keeps me up at night,” Faherty said, “is families are going to be flooded with information about vaccines that is confusing and contradictory and not based on the science.”