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A growing number of states say they won’t follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new childhood vaccine recommendations.
On Jan. 5, the CDC reduced the number of routinely recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11. The agency moved several vaccines to a “shared clinical decision-making” category that encourages discussion between the doctor and patient or parent about whether to get the vaccine.
The recategorized vaccines include rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B.
Since the CDC’s Jan. 5 announcement, 19 states have said they won’t follow the new CDC schedule: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Most plan to follow the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) vaccine guidance released in August 2025, the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP) reported.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Press Secretary Emily G. Hilliard criticized states that refuse to follow the CDC’s updated vaccine schedule. She told The Defender:
“Democrat-led states that imposed unscientific school closures, toddler mask mandates, and vaccine passports during the COVID era are the ones who destroyed public trust in public health and should not be guiding policy.
“The updated CDC childhood schedule continues to protect children against serious diseases while aligning U.S. guidance with international norms. Many peer nations achieve high vaccination rates without mandates by relying on trust, education, and strong doctor-patient relationships.”
HHS plans to work with states and local providers to ensure families have clear, accurate information so they can make their own informed decisions, Hilliard said.
“Americans voted for transparency and HHS is delivering it.”
States pass laws codifying change to bypass CDC
Some states have banded together to form health alliances opposing recent changes in federal vaccine guidance.
On Jan. 5, the West Coast Health Alliance, made up of California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, endorsed AAP’s vaccination schedule.
According to CIDRAP, the Northeast Public Health Collaborative — Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and New York City — announced they will follow the AAP’s vaccine guidance, not the CDC’s.
Some states have passed or are considering laws to codify their independence from the CDC. California passed a law that gives the state the authority to issue its own vaccine guidance, independent of the CDC.
Lawmakers in Alaska have similarly proposed a bill to allow the state follow the AAP’s recommendations rather than the CDC’s.
New Massachusetts law is about ‘power, control,’ not public health
In Massachusetts, lawmakers passed a law that gives the state’s public health commissioner the authority to use guidance from the Massachusetts Vaccine Program Advisory Council to set vaccine requirements.
The council includes representatives from AAP, the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians and some doctors.
“This shift raises important questions about oversight, process and public input,” Candice Edwards, executive director of Health Action Massachusetts, told The Defender.
Julie Booras, co-founder of Health Rights MA Advocacy, told The Defender that the new law “removes federal guardrails and centralizes vaccine authority in a single unelected office, guided by industry-aligned trade organizations, with no public input.”
“This is not about public health,” Booras said. “It is about power, control and the growing influence of pharmaceutical-aligned trade groups over vaccine policy,” Booras said.
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Former CDC director warns doctors may face more ‘resistance’ from parents
Under its updated schedule, the CDC continues to routinely recommend vaccines that protect against what HHS called the “most serious” childhood diseases.
These include measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease and varicella (chickenpox).
The CDC also continues to recommend the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, but the recommendation will be for one, not two doses. In 2016, the CDC changed its recommendation from three doses of the HPV vaccine to two doses a decade after the vaccine’s initial approval.
In a Jan. 13 letter published in JAMA, former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and other pharma-friendly public health officials acknowledged that it may no longer work for doctors to presume that parents will want to vaccinate their child.
A “presumptive” approach is more effective at getting high vaccine uptake than a “participatory” approach, according to research compiled by the AAP.
For instance, a doctor using the presumptive approach might say, “Today your child is due for two vaccines. We will be giving MMR and varicella.”
A doctor using the participatory approach might ask, “Do you want to vaccinate your child today?”
Walensky and her co-authors believe the changes have “sowed confusion, fear and uncertainty” among doctors and parents. Doctors “may now encounter greater surprise or resistance from parents who have heard that the vaccines in question are no longer CDC-recommended.”
Dr. Monique Yohanan, senior fellow for health policy at Independent Women, told The Defender in an earlier interview that the decision to change the federal vaccination guidelines was bound to be controversial, but “sometimes you just need to pull off the bandaid.”
The CDC “did it in a way that aligns with immunology, it aligns with the best evidence, it aligns with what is really a way to protect communities and minimize the exposure of children to vaccines that they just don’t need,” Yohanan said.
Related articles in The Defender- The CDC’s New Vaccine Recommendations: What to Know
- Breaking: HHS Makes Sweeping Changes to Childhood Vaccine Schedule
- Eight Northeast States Eye End Run Around CDC Vaccine Recommendations
- California Passes Law Giving State Authority to Set Its Own Vaccine Guidance
- ‘Dangerous Games’: States Defy Federal Agencies, Create Their Own COVID Vaccine Rules
