Colorado health leaders encourage parents to stick with full set of childhood vaccines

Preventing dangerous illnesses is vital. That's why medical experts at the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and UCHealth continue to recommend a full series of vaccines for babies and children.
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The change in federal guidance has triggered concern among physician organizations and public health experts. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and UCHealth providers continue to recommend that families follow the American Academy of Pediatrics Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule. Photo: Getty Images.
The change in federal guidance has triggered concern among physician organizations and public health experts. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and UCHealth providers continue to recommend that families follow the American Academy of Pediatrics Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule. Photo: Getty Images.

Colorado health experts and UCHealth medical providers continue to recommend the full schedule of vaccinations for babies and children.

Medical experts are following guidance based on peer-reviewed scientific studies and the best practices of trusted health entities like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and other organizations.

Federal officials in the U.S. recently removed hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningitis, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), influenza, coronavirus and rotavirus from its list of routine vaccinations for babies and children. Vaccine managers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommend those vaccines only or “high-risk groups and populations” or after “shared clinical decision-making,” meaning a dialogue between parents and their child’s medical provider.

A confusing change in vaccine guidance

The change in guidance has triggered concern among physician organizations and public health experts. Despite CDC leaders describing the action as being based on “a scientific review of the underlying science, comparing the U.S. child and adolescent immunization schedule with those of peer, developed nations,” American Academy of Pediatrics leaders called the CDC’s recommended removal of several universal childhood vaccines “dangerous and unnecessary.” The academy said it would continue to make its own evidence-based recommendations.

“At a time when parents, pediatricians and the public are looking for clear guidance and accurate information, this ill-considered decision will sow further chaos and confusion and erode confidence in immunizations,” American Academy of Pediatrics President Dr. Andrew D. Racine said in a statement.

Leaders at the American Medical Association also opposed the CDC’s updated recommendations.

“Changes of this magnitude require careful review, expert and public input, and clear scientific justification,” American Medical Association trustee Dr. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer said in a statement, “When longstanding recommendations are altered without a robust, evidence-based process, it undermines public trust and puts children at unnecessary risk of preventable disease.”

Sticking with vaccination guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics

Medical experts at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment continue to recommend that families follow the American Academy of Pediatrics Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule.

“Colorado’s vaccine guidance is rooted in decades of strong scientific evidence and real-world experience,” Dr. Ned Calonge, the state health department’s chief medical officer, said in a statement. “Regardless of changes at the federal level, our priority is ensuring families and providers have trusted, evidence-based guidance to keep children and communities healthy.”

UCHealth leaders and medical providers are following suit in backing the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommended vaccination schedule.

“We continue to follow the science, as we always have, and we think the guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics is still the correct guidance,” said Dr. Michelle Barron, UCHealth’s senior medical director of infection prevention and control.

Barron, who is also a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz campus, said she was “alarmed” at the new CDC recommendations. She said the idea that vaccines be pulled from universal recommendation instead be administered only after a dialogue with a clinician is especially troubling. There already is a dialogue with clinicians regarding vaccinations, she says. Medical providers don’t mandate childhood vaccinations, although they’re required by most schools, with the exception of limited medical and nonmedical opt-outs.

“You can trust that your provider has your interests in mind,” Barron said.

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About the author

Todd Neff has written hundreds of stories for University of Colorado Hospital and UCHealth. He covered science and the environment for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado, and has taught narrative nonfiction at the University of Colorado, where he was a Ted Scripps Fellowship recipient in Environmental Journalism. He is author of “A Beard Cut Short,” a biography of a remarkable professor; “The Laser That’s Changing the World,” a history of lidar; and “From Jars to the Stars,” a history of Ball Aerospace.