Amid vaccine policy whiplash, here’s how one pediatrician speaks to families

Molly O’Shea has been practicing pediatrics for 33 years. “I’ve seen it all,” she said. His career spans the introduction of numerous vaccines, the decline of infectious diseases and a worrying increase in vaccine hesitancy.

When, in January, the Trump administration reduced the number of recommended shots In the government’s childhood vaccination program, the rotavirus vaccine was among those demoted. O’Shea remembers the time when no vaccine was available. During his first month of graduate medical training in 1990, an infant died from a diarrheal illness caused by rotavirus. Seeing the child “waste away and die despite all our efforts,” she said, “was so devastating.”

But on March 16, a federal judge blocked the administration’s changes. And he I didn’t mince my words. “For our public health, Congress and the Executive Branch have built – over decades – an apparatus that combines the rigors of science with the execution and strength of the United States government,” U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy wrote in his opinion in American Academy of Pediatrics v. Robert F. Kennedy.

Historically, decisions about vaccination policy have been made using “a method that is scientific in nature and codified in law through procedural requirements,” Murphy wrote. “Unfortunately, the government ignored these methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions. »

In addition to restoring the number of vaccines that had previously been recommendedthe judge also concluded that the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kennedy’s hand-picked members Members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP, were illegally appointed. This renders the group’s past decisions invalid. The Trump administration is expected to appeal.

In the meantime, “this decision is really important because it means that all children can be protected from these [vaccine-preventable] diseases when they need protection the most,” says O’Shea, who has advocated for children’s health with the AAP. “And it’s also a real victory for science because it says you really need to rely on science to make these decisions, not just opinion.”

O’Shea practices in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. For parents who have doubts about vaccines, “I think it’s really important to validate their point of view, their information,” she says, while sharing the science behind vaccination. The same goes for recognizing the common ground she shares with families: keeping children healthy.

In the past, the main question O’Shea asked parents was whether vaccines were linked to autism, which was based on a study that falsified the data and was later retracted. But since Trump returned to power in 2025 and elevated Kennedy to HHS secretary, she has noticed the range of concerns has widened. The administration is “stoking a different kind of uncertainty.”

There’s “the toxin mentality,” she says, “which I think comes from a real concern” about what people consider chemical exposure. Some families fear that there will be evidence in the future of potential harm from vaccine ingredients, similar to what is now being discovered in per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances Or microplasticsshe said. O’Shea responds by noting that vaccine components have been consistent over time and that researchers have not found any concerning links to health problems. But “the risk of harmful consequences linked to the disease itself is real today”.

Also new are those who tell O’Shea “you can’t believe real science”, that the science behind vaccination “has been overturned”.

It will take time to get a full picture of the current Trump administration’s impact on vaccine distrust. So far, majorities in two recent polls still express support for vaccines. In November, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported that 63 percent of Americans surveyed are very confident in the effectiveness of childhood vaccines. KFF, a health policy nonprofit, released the results of a survey in February, conducted after the government announced a scaled-back childhood vaccination program. Of the half of U.S. adults aware of the news, 54% said the changes would have a negative impact children’s health.

There are, however, warning signs of a decline in vaccination rates. Coverage among Kindergarteners fell in love with all the reported gunshots during the 2024-2025 school year compared to the previous year. Hepatitis B newborn vaccination rate fell from 83.5 percent in February 2023 to 73 percent in August 2025, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in February. This trend predates ACIP’s decision in December to no longer recommend a universal birth dose.

Then there are the ongoing measles epidemics in the United States. The threshold for vaccination coverage to stop the spread of measles is high, around 95 percent. An outbreak in South Carolina — with nearly 1,000 cases as of early March — is centered in Spartanburg County, where coverage for measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, has been inoculated. is just below 89 percent in schools. The vast majority of reported cases involve people who are unvaccinated or whose MMR vaccination status is unknown.

Anecdotally, some of O’Shea’s families who previously got vaccinated have become more wary. Others have left his office since the return of the Trump administration, deciding they no longer want to vaccinate.

“The unfortunate thing is that parents who have less confidence in vaccination or who don’t want to vaccinate don’t really see the value in their children’s annual wellness visit,” O’Shea says. But this is “where ongoing relationship building happens,” not only between the pediatrician and the parent, but also between the pediatrician and the child. Annual contact is important, she said, especially as children get older and may have things they want to talk to her about on their own.

To help rebuild trust, “we need [political] leadership that actually believes in vaccines,” says O’Shea. part of routine family appointments with pediatricians. She encourages her families who have questions and concerns to tell her what they think so they can talk about it. “Often they heard all kinds of things,” some accurate, but much less so. “It’s important to make sure everyone is heard” and that families feel confident in their decision to vaccinate, she said.

O’Shea wants parents to know that the vaccination schedule is designed with the child’s immune system in mind. “The vaccines are timed and the dose is configured to work wonderfully in tandem” with the growing immune system, she says. And the time is “ideal to protect yourself against illness”.

“By following the program, your child will really reap the benefits of this exposure to the immune system,” says O’Shea. “Because the safest way – the safest way – [for the body] to learn about any disease, it is through vaccination.