The American Academy of Pediatrics Breaks from the CDC on Childhood Vaccines

January 27, 2026

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) continues to recommend childhood vaccines against 18 diseases, diverging from CDC guidance released earlier this month.

Here are four things you need to know:

1. Diverging guidance

The news from the nation’s leading pediatrics group comes after the Trump administration announced sweeping changes to the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule last month, reducing the number of vaccines all children are advised to receive down to 11.

The CDC no longer recommends six vaccines universally: Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, the flu, Meningitis, respiratory syncytial virus, and rotavirus.

Instead, it recommends these vaccines be given to children who fall in the “high risk” category or after “shared clinical decision-making” with a health care provider.

The changes are part of a larger effort to put the U.S. on par with other nations like Denmark, Japan and Germany, which recommend fewer childhood vaccines universally.

2. AAP schedule

The AAP has called the removal of universal recommendations “dangerous and unnecessary” and said it was planning a court challenge to reverse them.

The AAP’s 2026 schedule maintains the routine recommendations and still calls for two doses of the HPV vaccine between 9–12 years. The CDC recommends one dose at 11–12 years.

The AAP schedule comes after a “review of vaccine safety data, the epidemiology of the diseases in the United States, the impact of the diseases, and how the vaccines could prevent the diseases and their complications,” officials said.

The AAP also says toddlers can receive the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and a monovalent varicella vaccine or the MMRV vaccine for their first dose. The CDC recommends giving two separate vaccines.

3. Health coverage

Earlier this month, federal health leaders said the vaccines recommended through December 31, 2025, would still be covered without cost-sharing and that liability protections remain in place.

State health officials also issued guidance allowing for consideration of other national medical associations beyond the federal health agencies for vaccine guidance.

4. Quotable

“As there is a lot of confusion going on with the constant new recommendations coming out of the federal government, it is important that we have a stable, trusted, evidence-based immunization schedule to follow and that’s the AAP schedule,” said Pia Pannaraj, MD, MPH, a member of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Diego.

HAP continues to monitor the latest public health developments and provide updates to members.

The AAP’s 2026 immunization schedule and press release are available online.