Shared Clinical Decision-Making During Vaccine Counseling Is Not New, Experts Say

This roundtable series, Clinical Insights: Childhood Vaccine Schedule Changes, discusses ongoing changes to the pediatric vaccine schedule, the inner workings of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and how these changes are impacting US public health.

The speakers express concern that these new recommendations were implemented without public discourse or traditional review by ACIP. They emphasize that historical evidence proves the necessity of vaccines, as these treatments successfully eradicated debilitating diseases such as polio, which younger doctors have never encountered. Furthermore, the experts highlight the critical role of patient education, arguing that health care professionals have always engaged in shared decision-making with patients, rather than asking patients to comply.

This episode’s discussion concludes with the experts noting that online misinformation confuses parents, making sudden, unexplained policy shifts even more damaging to public trust. Ultimately, the panel advocates for a rigorous, transparent approach to medicine that relies on established facts rather than arbitrary mandates.

This series features insights from a panel of health care professionals:

• Jacinda Abdul-Mutakabbir, PharmD, MPH, assistant professor of clinical pharmacy and antimicrobial resistance researcher at the University of California San Diego
• Sharon Nachman, MD, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease, Stony Brook Children's Hospital, New York
• Mary Koslap-Petraco, DNP, PNP-BC, CPNP, clinical assistant professor at Stony Brook University School of Nursing in New York
• William Schaffner, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee

The full series can be viewed here on Contagion Live.