Do you think anyone in our lofty Administration has thought about the combination of skyrocketing medical premiums and the potential of many more hospitalizations due to the abandonment of immunizations?
Further to your point, hospitals and health clinics in rural areas are disappearing, leaving behind health care deserts. Without immunizations, Medicaid benefits and affordable Health Care for all, what will happen when folks in rural communities become sick in greater numbers? Misery and anguish and heartbreak will hit full force. In answer to your original question here, I am positive not a scintilla of thought has gone into the health apocalypse that awaits us all as we turn our backs to science….not even a “concept of a plan.”
You’re absolutely right. Rural communities are already being pushed into healthcare deserts, and when access disappears, prevention becomes even more critical. Immunizations, Medicaid coverage, and affordable care aren’t abstract policy debates in these areas, they’re the difference between early intervention and catastrophe.
I actually explored this exact concern in a previous essay, “The Uncompensated Cost of Doing Nothing,” (linked below) looking at how weakening public health infrastructure and turning away from science disproportionately harms rural and underserved communities. What’s unfolding now feels less like an oversight and more like a dangerous indifference , as you said, not even a concept of a plan, just fallout waiting to happen.
Thank you Shanley for this excellent but heartbreaking post. This article needs wide circulation so that it reaches the parents and family's who are trying to understand the confusion created by these unqualified and inept people who are charge. Shame on the CDC for kowtowing to the kleptocracy.
Thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to say this. My hope in writing it was exactly that, to reach parents and families who are being asked to make impossible decisions in an environment deliberately clouded by confusion. No one should have to navigate their child’s health through political noise.
I appreciate you helping amplify it. The more these conversations stay grounded in care, science, and shared responsibility, the better chance we have of protecting the people most affected , especially children.
I agree, pediatricians are essential guides for families, and most continue to practice based on evidence, experience, and a deep commitment to their patients. The problem is that many parents still look to national institutions like the CDC for baseline guidance, and when that guidance becomes unstable or politicized, it makes those clinical conversations harder, not easier.
That strain is compounded by a growing provider shortage. Pediatricians are already stretched thin, with limited appointment time and overwhelming caseloads. When federal guidance creates confusion, it forces clinicians to spend what little time they have untangling misinformation instead of focusing on care. Trust in public health should lighten that burden, not add to it.
I am so tired of people who think they know more than scientists and all the medical professionals who are educated and knowledgable. These people believe ridiculous theories and spend their money on quack "drugs" and unproven treatments. It's one thing for these knuckleheads to get sick because they don't trust science, but when the children get sick and die it is criminal.
I was born before there was a vaccine for measles and chicken pox. I was very young when I got these diseases but I will never forget how sick I was. I would not wish this on anyone.
I hear this exhaustion deeply, and your perspective matters, especially because you remember a time before these protections existed. People forget how serious measles, chickenpox, and other childhood illnesses actually were because vaccines worked so well that the suffering faded from public memory.
I struggle most with the same thing you name here: adults are free to make choices for themselves, but children don’t get that agency. When misinformation and unproven treatments replace science, it isn’t just a personal risk, it becomes a moral failure when kids are the ones who pay the price. No child should suffer or die because adults chose ideology or conspiracy over evidence and care.
Thank you for sharing your memory. It’s an important reminder of what we’re risking by pretending the past can’t return.
As a retired Pediatrician has said, “What you need to know about the new schedule is to completely ignore it.”
Use the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) that publishes vaccine guidelines. Make this known as often as possible.
Turns out, AAP has been publishing vaccine guidelines since the 1930's. Until recently AAP and CDC were in general agreement - although when there was disagreement, Pediatricians relied on AAP guidelines. The CDC has fallen, fallen into the depths of ensuring more people will be sicker and even worse that people who would have been vaccinated will die..
We're now at the point that reporting on RFK's gibberish means passing on misinformation. Please Go to aap.org to get reliable vaccine information. It saves lives and families tragedies.
This regime cannot be trusted, and certainly not with the lives of your children. You can either look across the pond at what European nations do and disregard this lying regime’s insane advice. Why some may ask, it’s easy nothing is based on any credible science and research, nothing. It’s all about feeding the base of anti-vaxers.
Who knew that anti-vaxers would marry into the same people who follow the liar who says he won the election in 2020. Who would believe that two groups of people who push lies and conspiracy crap could make such a marriage. Then there’s the others that love those conspiracies that believe that somebody of color stole that white mans job. Yes a number of factions of liars have and did birth the MAGA/MAHA movement..
But you see there’s No making it Great or Healthy - it’s more making it Poorer and Sicker and throw in Dumber to push that entire movement forward..
And, of course, the CDC recommendations are not themselves mandatory. "People can choose to vaccinate" is exactly mirrored by "People can choose NOT to vaccinate." Changing the recommendations doesn't alter that choice except, as you point out, suggesting to parents that it is SAFE not to vaccinate for the things no longer on the list. Another freakin' lie.
Exactly. CDC recommendations were never mandates, they’ve always been guidance. Parents have always had the ability to choose. The danger in changing those recommendations isn’t about removing choice, it’s about reshaping perception. When something disappears from the list, it quietly signals that it’s safe, or at least unnecessary.
That implication is deeply misleading. It creates a false sense of security, not informed consent. And when that message comes from a trusted institution, the consequences aren’t theoretical, they show up in real children, real hospitalizations, and real loss.
I picture a family gathering to show off the new baby. Grandparents, with a few health problems, are there, as are other children and aunts and uncles. A few of the kids have the sniffles. It's not difficult to understand where this could easily go. Lots of pictures of the kids holding the baby while they all sit on a couch and give or blow kisses to the newborn.
Exactly. This is how transmission actually happens, not through reckless behavior, but through ordinary, loving moments. Family gatherings, grandparents meeting a new baby, cousins with mild sniffles, kisses blown from across the couch. None of it feels dangerous in the moment, and no one is acting with ill intent.
That’s why clear guidance and strong vaccination policies matter so much. They exist to protect people in these everyday scenarios, newborns, older relatives, and families simply trying to be together. When that protective framework weakens, the risk quietly shifts onto the most vulnerable, often without anyone realizing it until it’s too late.
This is why it is such a trajedy that the COVID vaccine is no longer recommended for pregnant women. I know a family whose baby died during COVID because the adults did not get vaccinated. It was a fundamentalist Christian household, so even though the wife was not opposed to vaccination, her husband would not allow it.
All sadly true. And another consequence for families is that often health insurance won't cover non-recommended treatments/vaccines. So even if a parent wants to vaccinate their child(ren), they may have to pay out of pocket, which of course leads to one more pressure on a family's budget, and hard choices :(
As an investigative journalist, Mary, I think you have missed a big area of corruption in our culture. Before public health agencies declared the necessity of mandatory vaccines, decisions on what shots a patient received were decided by informed consent between a doctor and a patient, or, for minors, parents consulted with their children’s doctor.
Then came the Pharma-influenced decision in 1986 that vaccine manufacturers would not be legally liable for flawed injected products designed to protect against infections. That’s when the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) was passed, creating the no-fault National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to provide compensation for vaccine injuries.
The unintended (or, possibly, intended) consequence was that Federal and state regulatory agencies, the media, and Congress itself, all became subservient to corporate influence and profiteering.
Here are some revealing excerpts from a 2011 book titled “The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio— Warren Buffett Stock Picks: Why and When He Is Investing in Them” by Mary Buffett (formerly married to Buffett’s son Peter) and David Clark:
“[W]ith the invention of each new vaccine comes a patent that is good for twenty years and guarantees that no one else can make the vaccine. In other words, the company has a monopoly.
“Even when the patents expire, other companies rarely step into the market because the major manufacturers have a permanent relationship with the government health departments of the world. This enables manufacturers to continue making the same vaccines year after year while maintaining their large profit margins even after their patents have expired.
“And last but not least, vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. are completely immune from lawsuits. Back in the 1980s several bad batches of vaccines injured so many children that the resulting successful lawsuits threatened to bankrupt the manufacturers, so the manufacturers lobbied a bill through Congress to make them a protected class.
“…relationships with the world’s governments, and it has the financial capital to create, manufacture, and sell vaccines on a world scale. If you were in charge of the health of a nation’s 30 million-plus children, who would you buy your vaccines from? Every year? Year after year? You’d pick the biggest and the best. There are only four pharmaceutical giants that control most of the vaccine production in the world and GSK [Glaxo Smith Kline] is one of them.
“There is another component to the vaccine equation that also spells BIG MONEY: Every year, women all over the world give birth to approximately 133 million new babies, 4.3 million babies in the U.S. alone. With the United States Centers for Disease Control recommending that children aged birth through six receive thirty-four individual vaccines, that means the market for those vaccines increases every year by 4.3 million in just the U.S. alone.
“This in turn means that the vaccine manufacturers selling in the U.S. have the potential to earn a profit of $1.09 billion every year (4.3 million x 34 x $7.50 = $1.09 billion). Consider the number of yearly vaccines worldwide and the numbers are staggering— approximately $34 billion a year (133 million x 34 x $7.5 billion). After ten years, in the U.S. alone, vaccine manufacturers will see more than $10 billion in net profit. On a world scale, the number jumps to a potential of $340 billion in profits.”
I want to respond thoughtfully, because concerns about corporate influence in healthcare deserve serious discussion, but they’re often misapplied in ways that ultimately harm children rather than address real systemic problems.
The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act did not eliminate accountability to enrich manufacturers. It was passed after a wave of lawsuits threatened the stability of the childhood vaccine supply, not because vaccines were uniquely unsafe, but because they are administered to millions of healthy people, making rare adverse events legally complex. The result was manufacturers leaving the market altogether, creating shortages of routine vaccines. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was designed as a no-fault alternative to ensure continued access while compensating the rare, real injuries that do occur. It is funded by a small excise tax on vaccines and does not require families to prove negligence, only causation.
That framework reflects a public-health tradeoff, not blanket immunity or a profit scheme. It also doesn’t negate informed consent: parents still consult with pediatricians, review risks and benefits, and make decisions for their children. What changed is the recognition that individual vaccination decisions affect population-level risk, particularly for infants, the immunocompromised, and the elderly.
Critiquing profiteering, consolidation, and regulatory capture in healthcare is valid, I share those concerns deeply. But routine childhood vaccines are not where pharmaceutical profits are concentrated, and claims about monopoly profits often rely on outdated or non-scientific sources. More importantly, CDC recommendations are developed through formal, public processes involving independent advisory committees, evidence review, and conflict-of-interest disclosures. They exist because prevention at scale saves lives.
My concern, and the point of this piece, is what happens when trust in evidence-based guidance collapses. History shows us clearly who pays that price, and it isn’t corporations. It’s children.
It is unfortunate that corporations make obscene profits from the work of scientists, but this does not mean that the science isn't valid. Nationalized health care (Medicare for All) would fix this.
Yes, that concern is valid, with an important caveat. Under current law, insurers are required to cover vaccines recommended by the CDC/ACIP without cost-sharing. If a vaccine is removed from the recommended schedule, insurers are no longer legally obligated to cover it at no cost.
That said, several major insurers have publicly stated they plan to continue covering vaccines that were recommended as of fall 2025, at least through 2026. This is a voluntary commitment, not a legal guarantee, and it may vary by insurer or state, and it doesn’t necessarily extend beyond that time frame.
So while coverage may continue in the short term, changing recommendations still introduces uncertainty and risk, especially for families already facing barriers to care. That’s one of the quiet but serious consequences of destabilizing public health guidance.
Trust is losing credibility to the hawkers ! Algorithms , saturated media claims pedaling “We’re The Best”, and an overall attitude of what catches the most’s eyes. People have become tired of one day coffee is good for you , the next a study saying it’s bad…or our brand is best . And nutrition? HA! even the basic pyramid of whole grains base to few ‘treats’ is questioned..ever hear drink more water you’re not hungry you’re thirsty…there’s sugar in 99% of the foods ..why? Because salt and sugar sells best.America is at a Dangerous level of overweight. Cook from scratch? >haven’t got the time. Most people don’t know what an iron lung is let alone polio, the Spanish flu, and prime is the currently ..measles resurgence ..it.will.get.worse.
Science was my favorite subject, those discovering cures are the greatest stories AND results..and whether a virus is man made or an act of nature …if it’s ignored …it’ll kill millions MORE.
One of the most basic needs is clean water, not just to drink, but use , providing safe utensils/body maintenance, hydration for every living species. Do most of us realize it’s now polluted?So is our information .
Thank you for this thoughtful reflection, you’re naming something many people feel but struggle to articulate. We’re living in an environment where information is constant, contradictory, and often driven by what sells or grabs attention rather than what’s careful, contextual, and true. That fatigue makes it easier for people to disengage or distrust everything equally, even when some sources are grounded in decades of evidence.
What worries me most is exactly what you point to: when history fades and basic public health knowledge disappears, the consequences return. Polio, measles, clean water, these weren’t abstract victories, they were hard-won protections. When science is ignored or treated as just another “opinion,” the cost isn’t theoretical. It shows up in bodies, in hospitals, and in lives lost.
Trusting the source matters. Rebuilding that trust requires transparency, humility, and a recommitment to evidence, not louder voices or simpler answers.
Evidence is eradication. Making claims of doubt does not equate to throwing out that evidence . There appears a lot of claims but little to no evidence from these barkers, just repetition and “louder voices”…( loved that point -so well made).
I think instead of MAGA it should be MAD, Make America Dumber. The cult of anti vaxers, anti science, anti intellectuals, is going to be a Darwinian Era. And like the Covid anti vax cult it is going to affect Trump's base the worst. As most of Trump's policies, deportation of our whole foundation of food production with the installation of inflationary tariffs, the triple whammy of vaccination recommendations & loss of health benefits & rural hospitals will be a time machine back to times when people lost so many children large families were needed to have any surviving children.
A dear relative of mine had long relied on the experts in the public health departments at all levels --- county, state, federal and international. Then her daughter and son-in-law announced that they wouldn't be vaccinating their baby when she was born.
Rather then call them misguided (does that ever work?), she studied the topic carefully, in order to find the most reliable info to send them, so they wouldn't endanger this eagerly awaited infant.
2 books, many articles, and numerous videos later, she understood not only why the official experts were wrong about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, but she herself quit getting shots.
In my experience, Mary and her readers are open-minded and level-headed, so perhaps some of you will open one or two of the 103 links I gathered mid-2015, written by similarly level-headed people who happen to be on the other side of this debate.
NPR keeps me informed of the pro-vaccine perspective, so I feel I'm meeting you halfway. How about exploring the what makes this very large minority take such a negative view. Anti-vaxxers aren't all idiots, so what are their reasons?
Skip my long editorial and go directly to the 103 links at the end for articles by MDs and MPHs and others who explain the flaws of vaccinations in general and the mRNA shots in particular:
Do you think anyone in our lofty Administration has thought about the combination of skyrocketing medical premiums and the potential of many more hospitalizations due to the abandonment of immunizations?
Further to your point, hospitals and health clinics in rural areas are disappearing, leaving behind health care deserts. Without immunizations, Medicaid benefits and affordable Health Care for all, what will happen when folks in rural communities become sick in greater numbers? Misery and anguish and heartbreak will hit full force. In answer to your original question here, I am positive not a scintilla of thought has gone into the health apocalypse that awaits us all as we turn our backs to science….not even a “concept of a plan.”
You’re absolutely right. Rural communities are already being pushed into healthcare deserts, and when access disappears, prevention becomes even more critical. Immunizations, Medicaid coverage, and affordable care aren’t abstract policy debates in these areas, they’re the difference between early intervention and catastrophe.
I actually explored this exact concern in a previous essay, “The Uncompensated Cost of Doing Nothing,” (linked below) looking at how weakening public health infrastructure and turning away from science disproportionately harms rural and underserved communities. What’s unfolding now feels less like an oversight and more like a dangerous indifference , as you said, not even a concept of a plan, just fallout waiting to happen.
Thank you for naming it so clearly.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marygeddry/p/the-uncompensated-cost-of-doing-nothing?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
Thank you Shanley for this excellent but heartbreaking post. This article needs wide circulation so that it reaches the parents and family's who are trying to understand the confusion created by these unqualified and inept people who are charge. Shame on the CDC for kowtowing to the kleptocracy.
Thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to say this. My hope in writing it was exactly that, to reach parents and families who are being asked to make impossible decisions in an environment deliberately clouded by confusion. No one should have to navigate their child’s health through political noise.
I appreciate you helping amplify it. The more these conversations stay grounded in care, science, and shared responsibility, the better chance we have of protecting the people most affected , especially children.
Seems to me they should be consulting their pediatricians and not the CDC as we know it presently.
I agree, pediatricians are essential guides for families, and most continue to practice based on evidence, experience, and a deep commitment to their patients. The problem is that many parents still look to national institutions like the CDC for baseline guidance, and when that guidance becomes unstable or politicized, it makes those clinical conversations harder, not easier.
That strain is compounded by a growing provider shortage. Pediatricians are already stretched thin, with limited appointment time and overwhelming caseloads. When federal guidance creates confusion, it forces clinicians to spend what little time they have untangling misinformation instead of focusing on care. Trust in public health should lighten that burden, not add to it.
The American health care system has gone to hell in a basket and I am SOOOOO glad I retired.
I am so tired of people who think they know more than scientists and all the medical professionals who are educated and knowledgable. These people believe ridiculous theories and spend their money on quack "drugs" and unproven treatments. It's one thing for these knuckleheads to get sick because they don't trust science, but when the children get sick and die it is criminal.
I was born before there was a vaccine for measles and chicken pox. I was very young when I got these diseases but I will never forget how sick I was. I would not wish this on anyone.
I hear this exhaustion deeply, and your perspective matters, especially because you remember a time before these protections existed. People forget how serious measles, chickenpox, and other childhood illnesses actually were because vaccines worked so well that the suffering faded from public memory.
I struggle most with the same thing you name here: adults are free to make choices for themselves, but children don’t get that agency. When misinformation and unproven treatments replace science, it isn’t just a personal risk, it becomes a moral failure when kids are the ones who pay the price. No child should suffer or die because adults chose ideology or conspiracy over evidence and care.
Thank you for sharing your memory. It’s an important reminder of what we’re risking by pretending the past can’t return.
As a retired Pediatrician has said, “What you need to know about the new schedule is to completely ignore it.”
Use the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) that publishes vaccine guidelines. Make this known as often as possible.
Turns out, AAP has been publishing vaccine guidelines since the 1930's. Until recently AAP and CDC were in general agreement - although when there was disagreement, Pediatricians relied on AAP guidelines. The CDC has fallen, fallen into the depths of ensuring more people will be sicker and even worse that people who would have been vaccinated will die..
We're now at the point that reporting on RFK's gibberish means passing on misinformation. Please Go to aap.org to get reliable vaccine information. It saves lives and families tragedies.
http://aap.org
This regime cannot be trusted, and certainly not with the lives of your children. You can either look across the pond at what European nations do and disregard this lying regime’s insane advice. Why some may ask, it’s easy nothing is based on any credible science and research, nothing. It’s all about feeding the base of anti-vaxers.
Who knew that anti-vaxers would marry into the same people who follow the liar who says he won the election in 2020. Who would believe that two groups of people who push lies and conspiracy crap could make such a marriage. Then there’s the others that love those conspiracies that believe that somebody of color stole that white mans job. Yes a number of factions of liars have and did birth the MAGA/MAHA movement..
But you see there’s No making it Great or Healthy - it’s more making it Poorer and Sicker and throw in Dumber to push that entire movement forward..
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/well/childhood-vaccine-schedule-cdc-changes.html
And, of course, the CDC recommendations are not themselves mandatory. "People can choose to vaccinate" is exactly mirrored by "People can choose NOT to vaccinate." Changing the recommendations doesn't alter that choice except, as you point out, suggesting to parents that it is SAFE not to vaccinate for the things no longer on the list. Another freakin' lie.
Exactly. CDC recommendations were never mandates, they’ve always been guidance. Parents have always had the ability to choose. The danger in changing those recommendations isn’t about removing choice, it’s about reshaping perception. When something disappears from the list, it quietly signals that it’s safe, or at least unnecessary.
That implication is deeply misleading. It creates a false sense of security, not informed consent. And when that message comes from a trusted institution, the consequences aren’t theoretical, they show up in real children, real hospitalizations, and real loss.
I picture a family gathering to show off the new baby. Grandparents, with a few health problems, are there, as are other children and aunts and uncles. A few of the kids have the sniffles. It's not difficult to understand where this could easily go. Lots of pictures of the kids holding the baby while they all sit on a couch and give or blow kisses to the newborn.
Exactly. This is how transmission actually happens, not through reckless behavior, but through ordinary, loving moments. Family gatherings, grandparents meeting a new baby, cousins with mild sniffles, kisses blown from across the couch. None of it feels dangerous in the moment, and no one is acting with ill intent.
That’s why clear guidance and strong vaccination policies matter so much. They exist to protect people in these everyday scenarios, newborns, older relatives, and families simply trying to be together. When that protective framework weakens, the risk quietly shifts onto the most vulnerable, often without anyone realizing it until it’s too late.
This is why it is such a trajedy that the COVID vaccine is no longer recommended for pregnant women. I know a family whose baby died during COVID because the adults did not get vaccinated. It was a fundamentalist Christian household, so even though the wife was not opposed to vaccination, her husband would not allow it.
This is absolutely not what we need to “make America healthy again.”
If the goal were truly health, we’d be investing in prevention, access, and trust, not eroding them.
All sadly true. And another consequence for families is that often health insurance won't cover non-recommended treatments/vaccines. So even if a parent wants to vaccinate their child(ren), they may have to pay out of pocket, which of course leads to one more pressure on a family's budget, and hard choices :(
As an investigative journalist, Mary, I think you have missed a big area of corruption in our culture. Before public health agencies declared the necessity of mandatory vaccines, decisions on what shots a patient received were decided by informed consent between a doctor and a patient, or, for minors, parents consulted with their children’s doctor.
Then came the Pharma-influenced decision in 1986 that vaccine manufacturers would not be legally liable for flawed injected products designed to protect against infections. That’s when the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) was passed, creating the no-fault National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to provide compensation for vaccine injuries.
The unintended (or, possibly, intended) consequence was that Federal and state regulatory agencies, the media, and Congress itself, all became subservient to corporate influence and profiteering.
Here are some revealing excerpts from a 2011 book titled “The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio— Warren Buffett Stock Picks: Why and When He Is Investing in Them” by Mary Buffett (formerly married to Buffett’s son Peter) and David Clark:
“[W]ith the invention of each new vaccine comes a patent that is good for twenty years and guarantees that no one else can make the vaccine. In other words, the company has a monopoly.
“Even when the patents expire, other companies rarely step into the market because the major manufacturers have a permanent relationship with the government health departments of the world. This enables manufacturers to continue making the same vaccines year after year while maintaining their large profit margins even after their patents have expired.
“And last but not least, vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. are completely immune from lawsuits. Back in the 1980s several bad batches of vaccines injured so many children that the resulting successful lawsuits threatened to bankrupt the manufacturers, so the manufacturers lobbied a bill through Congress to make them a protected class.
“…relationships with the world’s governments, and it has the financial capital to create, manufacture, and sell vaccines on a world scale. If you were in charge of the health of a nation’s 30 million-plus children, who would you buy your vaccines from? Every year? Year after year? You’d pick the biggest and the best. There are only four pharmaceutical giants that control most of the vaccine production in the world and GSK [Glaxo Smith Kline] is one of them.
“There is another component to the vaccine equation that also spells BIG MONEY: Every year, women all over the world give birth to approximately 133 million new babies, 4.3 million babies in the U.S. alone. With the United States Centers for Disease Control recommending that children aged birth through six receive thirty-four individual vaccines, that means the market for those vaccines increases every year by 4.3 million in just the U.S. alone.
“This in turn means that the vaccine manufacturers selling in the U.S. have the potential to earn a profit of $1.09 billion every year (4.3 million x 34 x $7.50 = $1.09 billion). Consider the number of yearly vaccines worldwide and the numbers are staggering— approximately $34 billion a year (133 million x 34 x $7.5 billion). After ten years, in the U.S. alone, vaccine manufacturers will see more than $10 billion in net profit. On a world scale, the number jumps to a potential of $340 billion in profits.”
I want to respond thoughtfully, because concerns about corporate influence in healthcare deserve serious discussion, but they’re often misapplied in ways that ultimately harm children rather than address real systemic problems.
The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act did not eliminate accountability to enrich manufacturers. It was passed after a wave of lawsuits threatened the stability of the childhood vaccine supply, not because vaccines were uniquely unsafe, but because they are administered to millions of healthy people, making rare adverse events legally complex. The result was manufacturers leaving the market altogether, creating shortages of routine vaccines. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was designed as a no-fault alternative to ensure continued access while compensating the rare, real injuries that do occur. It is funded by a small excise tax on vaccines and does not require families to prove negligence, only causation.
That framework reflects a public-health tradeoff, not blanket immunity or a profit scheme. It also doesn’t negate informed consent: parents still consult with pediatricians, review risks and benefits, and make decisions for their children. What changed is the recognition that individual vaccination decisions affect population-level risk, particularly for infants, the immunocompromised, and the elderly.
Critiquing profiteering, consolidation, and regulatory capture in healthcare is valid, I share those concerns deeply. But routine childhood vaccines are not where pharmaceutical profits are concentrated, and claims about monopoly profits often rely on outdated or non-scientific sources. More importantly, CDC recommendations are developed through formal, public processes involving independent advisory committees, evidence review, and conflict-of-interest disclosures. They exist because prevention at scale saves lives.
My concern, and the point of this piece, is what happens when trust in evidence-based guidance collapses. History shows us clearly who pays that price, and it isn’t corporations. It’s children.
It is unfortunate that corporations make obscene profits from the work of scientists, but this does not mean that the science isn't valid. Nationalized health care (Medicare for All) would fix this.
Wondering if the fact that the CDC doesn’t recommend certain vaccines will make it to where insurance companies no longer pay for them.
Yes, that concern is valid, with an important caveat. Under current law, insurers are required to cover vaccines recommended by the CDC/ACIP without cost-sharing. If a vaccine is removed from the recommended schedule, insurers are no longer legally obligated to cover it at no cost.
That said, several major insurers have publicly stated they plan to continue covering vaccines that were recommended as of fall 2025, at least through 2026. This is a voluntary commitment, not a legal guarantee, and it may vary by insurer or state, and it doesn’t necessarily extend beyond that time frame.
So while coverage may continue in the short term, changing recommendations still introduces uncertainty and risk, especially for families already facing barriers to care. That’s one of the quiet but serious consequences of destabilizing public health guidance.
Great post!
Trust is losing credibility to the hawkers ! Algorithms , saturated media claims pedaling “We’re The Best”, and an overall attitude of what catches the most’s eyes. People have become tired of one day coffee is good for you , the next a study saying it’s bad…or our brand is best . And nutrition? HA! even the basic pyramid of whole grains base to few ‘treats’ is questioned..ever hear drink more water you’re not hungry you’re thirsty…there’s sugar in 99% of the foods ..why? Because salt and sugar sells best.America is at a Dangerous level of overweight. Cook from scratch? >haven’t got the time. Most people don’t know what an iron lung is let alone polio, the Spanish flu, and prime is the currently ..measles resurgence ..it.will.get.worse.
Science was my favorite subject, those discovering cures are the greatest stories AND results..and whether a virus is man made or an act of nature …if it’s ignored …it’ll kill millions MORE.
One of the most basic needs is clean water, not just to drink, but use , providing safe utensils/body maintenance, hydration for every living species. Do most of us realize it’s now polluted?So is our information .
Trusting the source is necessary.
Thank you for this thoughtful reflection, you’re naming something many people feel but struggle to articulate. We’re living in an environment where information is constant, contradictory, and often driven by what sells or grabs attention rather than what’s careful, contextual, and true. That fatigue makes it easier for people to disengage or distrust everything equally, even when some sources are grounded in decades of evidence.
What worries me most is exactly what you point to: when history fades and basic public health knowledge disappears, the consequences return. Polio, measles, clean water, these weren’t abstract victories, they were hard-won protections. When science is ignored or treated as just another “opinion,” the cost isn’t theoretical. It shows up in bodies, in hospitals, and in lives lost.
Trusting the source matters. Rebuilding that trust requires transparency, humility, and a recommitment to evidence, not louder voices or simpler answers.
Evidence is eradication. Making claims of doubt does not equate to throwing out that evidence . There appears a lot of claims but little to no evidence from these barkers, just repetition and “louder voices”…( loved that point -so well made).
Truly tragic 😢
I think instead of MAGA it should be MAD, Make America Dumber. The cult of anti vaxers, anti science, anti intellectuals, is going to be a Darwinian Era. And like the Covid anti vax cult it is going to affect Trump's base the worst. As most of Trump's policies, deportation of our whole foundation of food production with the installation of inflationary tariffs, the triple whammy of vaccination recommendations & loss of health benefits & rural hospitals will be a time machine back to times when people lost so many children large families were needed to have any surviving children.
A dear relative of mine had long relied on the experts in the public health departments at all levels --- county, state, federal and international. Then her daughter and son-in-law announced that they wouldn't be vaccinating their baby when she was born.
Rather then call them misguided (does that ever work?), she studied the topic carefully, in order to find the most reliable info to send them, so they wouldn't endanger this eagerly awaited infant.
2 books, many articles, and numerous videos later, she understood not only why the official experts were wrong about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, but she herself quit getting shots.
In my experience, Mary and her readers are open-minded and level-headed, so perhaps some of you will open one or two of the 103 links I gathered mid-2015, written by similarly level-headed people who happen to be on the other side of this debate.
NPR keeps me informed of the pro-vaccine perspective, so I feel I'm meeting you halfway. How about exploring the what makes this very large minority take such a negative view. Anti-vaxxers aren't all idiots, so what are their reasons?
Skip my long editorial and go directly to the 103 links at the end for articles by MDs and MPHs and others who explain the flaws of vaccinations in general and the mRNA shots in particular:
https://laurenayers.substack.com/p/why-does-yolo-county-public-health