It’s not a question: Vaccines save lives. In 2018, for example, it’s estimated that 700,000 children between 0-5 years of age died worldwide from vaccine-preventable infectious disease.

Upending years of science, the current federal administration has chosen to change the childhood vaccination recommendation schedule from 17 to 11 recommended vaccinations. This recommendation comes after United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has assembled a controversial new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Some of these new recommendations dismiss years of evidence that established the prior U.S. vaccination schedules. For example, rotavirus is a potentially severe illness mainly affecting babies and young children. When childhood vaccination against rotavirus began, the U.S. saw a massive decrease of rotavirus-related hospitalizations by 83%.

Inexplicably, the CDC is no longer recommending this vaccination to all children. Other potentially fatal vaccine-preventable diseases are on the rise, with the current outbreak of measles in South Carolina an unfortunate example of what happens when vaccination rates drop. We cannot allow this to happen: our patients, our families and our communities will be harmed.

The Maine Academy of Family Physicians and the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics stand by the current scientific evidence of childhood vaccinations recommended by both the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. We urge Mainers to stay informed and listen to their clinicians, not politicians, when deciding on the safest and most effective vaccinations for themselves and their loved ones.

Brendan Prast, MD, MPH, advocacy chair, Maine Academy of Family Physicians
Biddeford

Brian Youth, MD, president, Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Scarborough