WASHINGTON —
Today’s announcement that the Trump administration is unilaterally reducing the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11 and defining dubious new categories of who is at risk for potentially dangerous and deadly preventable infections constitutes a decision wholly without scientific merit and must be opposed, America’s Physician Groups said today.
“What has occurred is without precedent in several decades of U.S. policy on vaccines,” said Susan Dentzer, President and CEO of America’s Physician Groups. ”Without any deliberative process, and in disregard of reams of scientific evidence on vaccine safety and effectiveness, the strong and longstanding U.S. recommendations about protecting children from preventable illness through immunization have been torn to pieces.” Coming on the heels of earlier decisions by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that also lacked a scientific basis, this latest action places at risk millions of children as well as the adults whom they may eventually grow up to be. This move must not stand, and APG will join forces with other leading medical groups and societies in opposing this effort to place America’s children in greater danger.
“As APG has repeatedly emphasized, vaccines are key to prevention, and prevention is key to value-based care. Not only is the administration’s move dangerous, but it also threatens the very efforts in which our physician groups and many others engage to provide health care that is fully accountable for costs and quality. America, which has led the world in vaccine provision and science and in efforts to produce greater value from health care, should not shoot itself in the foot as it endangers children’s health this way.”
###
About America’s Physician Groups
APG’s approximately 340 physician groups comprise nearly 260,00 physicians and other clinicians providing care to nearly 90 million patients, including an estimated 1 in 4 Americans and 1 in 3 Medicare Advantage enrollees. APG’s motto, ‘Taking Responsibility for America’s Health,’ represents our members’ commitment to clinically integrated, coordinated, value-based health care in which physician groups are accountable for the costs and quality of patient care. Visit us at www.apg.org. #####
