JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The Trump administration has said it wants to align its childhood vaccination schedule with best practices in peer nations - places like Denmark. That could mean fewer vaccines against fewer diseases. But critics say you can't simply adopt another country's vaccine schedule in the U.S., which has a very different population and different health risks. Here to tell us more is NPR's Maria Godoy. Hi there.
MARIA GODOY, BYLINE: Hi.
SUMMERS: Maria, for starters, why Denmark? What is the U.S. looking to emulate when it comes to childhood vaccines?
GODOY: Well, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long said he thinks American kids get too many vaccines. And earlier this month, President Trump issued a memorandum directing Kennedy and the acting CDC director to look at best practices from peer nations, and it specifically mentioned Denmark, which vaccinates all kids against just 10 diseases. Meanwhile, the U.S. recommends routine vaccination against 16 diseases. It was actually 17 until last week when the CDC dropped the recommendation for vaccinating all newborns against hepatitis B. And earlier this month, at a meeting of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel, an FDA official gave a big presentation really highlighting Denmark's childhood vaccination schedule.
SUMMERS: I mean, Denmark is a wealthy nation, and it does have a great health care system, so one could argue why not emulate their vaccine schedule?
GODOY: You know, I asked this of Dr. Sean O'Leary with the American Academy of Pediatrics, and here's what he said.
SEAN O'LEARY: It's like comparing a cruise ship to a kayak. I mean, for example, Denmark is the size of roughly Wisconsin.
GODOY: He notes Denmark's population is only about 6 million people, and it's not very diverse in income or race, unlike the U.S. It's got a national health registry that basically tracks everyone from birth to death and free universal health care that makes it easier to get care if you're sick. Families get about a year of paid parental leave so they can stay home with their babies, so they potentially aren't exposed to as many diseases. And if an infant gets hospitalized, for example, with RSV, which Denmark does not vaccinate against, their health system absorbs that cost, so it's not a barrier to getting care.
SUMMERS: And I'll just note that sounds quite different from the situation here in the U.S.
GODOY: Exactly. And here, a lot of people struggle with health care access, and we also have higher rates of childhood obesity and asthma. And we put more of an emphasis on disease prevention rather than management. You know, I also spoke with Dr. William Moss of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and he says here's the bottom line.
WILLIAM MOSS: The reason why countries, particularly in Europe, have different vaccination schedules is not because they consider the vaccines not to be safe or that the vaccines don't work. And I think it's very important that people understand that.
GODOY: He says it really is about all these other differences in context.
SUMMERS: Maria, we spoke about Denmark, but how does the U.S. compare to other peer nations when it comes to childhood vaccines?
GODOY: You know, I asked the same question to Josh Michaud, a global health expert with KFF. And he says that when you look at the 30 countries that are part of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the U.S. is very much in line with them.
JOSH MICHAUD: It is Denmark that seems to be the outlier here in terms of recommending very few vaccines. So in the case of Germany and France and Italy, we might be talking about 15 or more vaccines.
SUMMERS: OK, so some variation there. Is this something we expect the Trump administration to move on in the near future?
GODOY: Yeah, that's the big question. The Health and Human Services Department sent out notices last Thursday saying they were going to make an announcement on children's health, but they canceled it a few hours later. Media reports suggest the administration had planned to announce an overhaul of the childhood vaccination schedule, but HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon declined to discuss the matter.
SUMMERS: NPR's Maria Godoy, thank you.
GODOY: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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