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Philadelphia doctors raise concerns over revised federal guidance for childhood vaccinations

Federal health officials have made big changes to childhood vaccination recommendations, including no longer recommending flu shots for healthy children. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it is not changing its guidance, creating a conflict with the new federal recommendations.

"Parents deserve clear, consistent, evidence-based guidance they can trust," Dr. Sean O'Leary, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, said.

Pediatricians like Dr. Jeff Seiden with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia say the new childhood vaccine recommendations from the Department of Health and Human Services will cause more preventable diseases — and even deaths.

"There's a lot of confusing information that's out there right now," Seiden said.

The CDC's new schedule continues to recommend vaccines against some diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, polio and whooping cough, chickenpox, HPV and some others for all children.

The vaccines that are no longer recommended for healthy children include influenza, Hepatitis A and B, meningitis, rotavirus and RSV. The Trump administration says insurance will still cover vaccinations.

"The existing vaccine guidelines, up until this point, have been based in many, many years and even decades of evidence," Seiden said.

For newborn babies, Hepatitis B and RSV are now only recommended for high-risk groups. The other vaccines start after a baby is one month old.

Federal vaccine recommendations are not mandates — that comes from the states. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware say they will continue to follow the old recommendations and guidance from the Academy of Pediatrics.

The Trump administration says the changes are meant to bring the United States in line with the vaccine schedules of other wealthy countries, like Denmark.

Alissa Kanowitz, who lost her four-year-old daughter Amanda to the flu, is worried more lives could be lost.

"We thought, as everybody else does, you know, oh, it's just the flu. And we learned the hard way — It's not just the flu," Kanowitz said.

Amanda had not been vaccinated. At the time, in 2004, a flu shot was only recommended for younger children.

"So that was one of the reasons why we got together with other families who had also lost children to form our organization, Families Fighting Flu. And we worked with doctors and with the CDC back then to change the recommendations to cover all children," Kanowitz said.

Kanowitz and her group are focused on the influenza vaccine. A shot that could have saved Amanda's life.

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