Health and Medicine
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has announced its own routine childhood immunization schedule for 2026, breaking with current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.It’s unlikely that this move will be seen as a major surprise. Earlier this month, the CDC carried out a major revamp of its childhood vaccine recommendations, whittling the list of diseases covered down from 18 to 11. The dropped vaccines included those against hepatitis A and B, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rotavirus, meningococcal disease, and flu. COVID-19 was also cut from the schedule back in 2025.
AAP President Andrew Racine, MD, PhD, FAAP, called the changes made by the CDC “dangerous and unnecessary”, with the AAP teaming up with other major US health organizations in a lawsuit to reverse the CDC’s decision – which was tacked on to another vaccine-related suit – just a short while later.
Racine also said at the time that the AAP would “continue to publish our own childhood vaccine recommendations,” and now, it appears that they’ve stuck to their guns.
The new schedule, which can be found in full here, diverges from that of the CDC by including all 18 of the previously recommended vaccines for those aged 18 or younger, including the jabs for COVID-19 and the six most recently cut by the federal health organization.
In announcing its new schedule, which has been formally endorsed by 12 other medical and healthcare organizations, the AAP made this divergence – and its disagreement with the CDC’s approach – clear.
“The 2026 AAP recommendations remain largely unchanged from prior AAP guidance released in August, 2025, but they differ from a schedule recently issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the medical association said in a statement. “The AAP formerly partnered with the CDC to create a unified set of vaccine recommendations, but recent changes to the CDC immunization schedule depart from longstanding medical evidence and no longer offer the optimal way to prevent illnesses in children.”
“The AAP will continue to provide recommendations for immunizations that are rooted in science and are in the best interest of the health of infants, children and adolescents of this country,” Racine added.
“Routine childhood immunizations are an important early step in the path to lifelong health. Every step you take alongside your child on that path is because you want them to grow up healthy and as a trusted partner on that journey, your pediatrician welcomes conversations about all your child’s health care, including immunizations.”
