Radical Changes in U.S. Vaccine & Nutrition Recommendations in 2026

If you do not follow health policy, prepare your mind for drastic paradigm shifts in what “public health” has recommended in the past 30 years in the U.S. First, start with understanding that Big Pharma (the drug industry) and Big Food (the processed food industry) have spent millions lobbying Congress for decades to sell you products. Big Pharma even successfully lobbied for a complete shield from liability for vaccines in NCVIA 1986, quickly tripled the recommended vaccines for children, and then lobbied the states to create mandates without exemptions. Second, Big Pharma ensured that “the experts” promoted more and more drugs and vaccines by funding medical schools, scientific journals, and medical boards. Third, Big Pharma combined its lobbying power, funding, and experts to capture U.S. health agencies to rubber stamp all drug and vaccine recommendations. With new leadership at HHS, FDA, and CDC, 2026 is the time to reevaluate “public health” recommendations which are heavily influenced by financial incentives and government contracts. Now is also the time to discern if “the experts” can actually back up their recommendations with efficacy studies, safety data, and good health outcomes, or if they retreat to another lobbying group, namely the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

Changes to the Childhood Vaccine Schedule

In January 2026, Children’s Health Defense reported in “HHS Makes Sweeping Changes to Childhood Vaccine Schedule” that the U.S. reduced the recommended vaccines for children from 17 to 11. This change resulted from comparison to other developed nations with the U.S. recommending more childhood vaccines than any peer nation, and twice as many doses than some European nations. The HHS Fact Sheet explains that there is not international consensus on the recommendations for many of the vaccines given to U.S. children, and that the new category of shared clinical decision making “allows for more flexibility and choice [for parents] and less coercion [from doctors].”

There are three new categories of vaccines (all covered by insurance):

Immunizations recommended for all children (11): measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria (DTaP), Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus (HPV), and varicella (chickenpox)
Immunizations recommended for certain high-risk children: Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), hepatitis A & B, meningococcal ACWY & B, and dengue.
Immunizations based on shared clinical decision-making (7): COVID-19, meningococcal ACWF and B, hepatitis A and B, influenza, and rotavirus.

In the past, if you acquiesced to the aforementioned coercion of all 17 recommended vaccines in the U.S., your child received 72 doses by age 18. The HHS Fact Sheet provides the context on the massive loss of trust in U.S. public health recommendations:

“Trust in U.S. public health declined from 72% to 40% between 2020 and 2024, coinciding with public health failure during the pandemic, including COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Though the COVID-19 vaccine was recommended for all children on the CDC schedule, the uptake rate was less than 10% by 2023. The uptake rate of other childhood vaccines declined during the same time period.”

Most of the Democratic states, to include Colorado, have communicated publicly that they will not follow these new CDC vaccines recommendations and instead will recommend the old schedule coerced by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). AAP doctors might reject a child from the practice for not following the old schedule in a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine. Parents should know that there are many doctors outside of the AAP for their children who will respect parental choice. Colorado has medical and non-medical exemptions (religious or philosophical objections) for all vaccines.

HHS Cancels Millions of Dollars in Grants to AAP

Who should a parent trust in health? For decades, public health demanded that parents comply with every recommended vaccine by the CDC, while doing nothing to mitigate chronic disease epidemics caused by poor nutrition, such as heart disease and obesity. HHS Secretary Kennedy shifted public health priorities from a narrow focus on infectious disease to the more prevalent problem of chronic disease, which kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. In 2025, the U.S. media reported 3 measles deaths like a plague. For 2025, the American Heart Association reported that 2,500 Americans died daily of heart disease; 425,000 total heart disease deaths.

In December 2025, Children’s Health Defense reported in “RFK Jr. Cancels Millions in Grants to AAP, as Battle Heats Up Between Health Officials and Pediatric Group,”

“HHS ended seven [AAP] grants, citing insufficient emphasis on chronic disease and nutrition and AAP’s use of ‘identity-based language,’ such as ‘pregnant people.’”

Prior to this change in funding in July 2025, the AAP sued HHS for changes under Sec. Kennedy. The AAP opposes HHS removing the COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for children, replacing members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the CDC who had conflicts of interests with the pharmaceutical industry, and removing the Hepatitis B vaccine birth dose recommendation. The AAP has publicly stated that it will no longer align with the CDC, and the AAP has called for ending all religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions.

Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland commented that the AAP is a front group for Big Pharma:

“While this trade organization poses as a professional association promoting children’s health, in fact, it is a front organization for the pharmaceutical industry. It markets anything and everything that industry sells, from vaccines to weight-loss injections to gender-affirming care for children, with little to no science behind its promotions.”

Executive Director of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Jane Orient stated more fervently:

“AAP’s view of public health is religious dedication to vaccines as the one-and-only method, and any adverse effects are minimal and justified for the good of the whole. It has abandoned fundamental medical ethics and adopted moral relativism. Money plays a big role, but it is also ideological.”

AAP censors and defames physicians who question vaccine safety and efficacy, and this creates conflict for people who support parental choice. The AAP claims the HHS changes are “unscientific” and a “war on science.” The reality is that many doctors will tell parents they are following the AAP recommendations without informing parents that the AAP has abandoned the national CDC recommendations.

Colorado Board of Health Votes to Continue Hep B Vaccine for Newborns

In December 2025, the CDC’s ACIP ended the decades long recommendation for the birth dose of Hepatitis B vaccine. As reported in “CDC Vaccine Panel Votes to End Universal Hep B Vaccine for Newborns,”

“Dr. Monique Yohanan, senior fellow for health policy at Independent Women, told The Defender there was never ‘a good science-based reason to have a universal vaccination that 99% of babies born in the United States are not at any risk,’ and that the vote was ‘good news for babies.’”

Hepatitis B is a disease risk for IV drug users and prostitutes, which is not a risk for 99% of pregnant mothers and their babies. The Hepatitis B vaccine can cause fever which is life threatening in the first month of life.

The Colorado Board of Health called an emergency vote to keep the Hepatitis B vaccine birth dose recommendation, and the rule passed. CDPHE claimed that “evidence” supported their recommendation but did not cite any clinical studies. CDPHE claimed that adverse reactions are “rare,” but did not present actual data on adverse reactions. CDPHE justified the Hepatitis B vaccine birth dose by claiming that universal screening for infected pregnant mothers was not possible, which necessitated a universal vaccine recommendation (3 doses in the series) for all infants. The Board of Health members alluded to following the AAP. This vote was not based on evidence.

A search for just one brand of Hep B vaccine (Engerix B) on OpenVAERS.com resulted in 59,974 serious adverse reports including disability and death. 99% of those infants were not at risk of Hepatitis B.

Federal Government Will Stop Financial Incentives for Vaccine Coercion

As of December 2025, the federal government will stop paying physicians based on the number of patients they vaccinate and is urging state health agencies to stop using similar financial incentives. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) “does not tie payment to performance on immunization quality measures in Medicaid and CHIP [Childhood Health Insurance Program] at the federal level.” Under the new policies, CMS will no longer require states to report how many children are vaccinated.

As reported in “Doctors Will No Longer Receive Financial Rewards for Vaccinating Kids,” Yudi Sherman of America’s Frontline News wrote, “Parents have complained for years that financial incentives distort medical judgment, leading to high-pressure tactics around childhood vaccinations. Some say doctors push shots parents believe are unnecessary or unsafe. Others report being dismissed from pediatric practices altogether if they decline vaccines.”

States would still be allowed to provide their own financial incentives to doctors. Democratic states like Colorado with pharma-captured legislatures and health departments will likely continue to incentivize pediatricians. Incentives range in hundreds of dollars per patient for vaccinating the majority percentage of their practice. These bonuses have different names to conceal that the money is in fact for vaccination, such as “value-based contracts” and “administrative fees.”

Transparency on Risks of Tylenol, Mercury, Vaccines, and Autism

In 2025, the HHS finally issued warnings on a common drug with known harms for decades. The FDA warned the public that Tylenol was linked to neurodevelopmental disorders in utero when used in pregnant women.

Regarding vaccine harms, CDC ACIP finally decided to remove all thimerosal from U.S. influenza vaccines, after removing thimerosal from all other vaccines in 2001. Some versions still contained mercury in the 2025-26 flu season. The CDC also stopped recommending the MMRV vaccine (combination MMR and Varicella), after twenty years of increased seizure risk for mostly poor kids on Medicaid who received this vaccine.

The FDA’s Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology formally recommend that a black box warning be added to COVID-19 vaccines for life threatening risks, but the FDA decided against the recommendation even with documented deaths of 10 children. OpenVAERS reports 38,913 death reports from the COVID vaccines, which makes it the deadliest vaccine over all other vaccines combined. Instead of a black box warning, the FDA directed Pfizer and Moderna to revise their COVID-19 vaccine labels to include warnings about the risks of permanent heart damage, specifically myocarditis and pericarditis, predominately in 16 to 24-year-old males.

The CDC admitted that the claim “vaccines do not cause autism” was not evidenced based because studies did not rule out vaccines as a cause of autism, and this statement was removed from the CDC website. This is the most notable public health reversal in the past 30 years.

2026 Starts With Secretary Kennedy Flipping the Food Pyramid

Secretary Kennedy unveiled revised dietary guidelines for the U.S. The new food pyramid puts protein and fats at the top priority with grains at the bottom in moderation. Butter is recommended; seed oils are not recommended. These dietary guidelines will become the norm for schoolchildren, military, and veterans, the elderly, and low-income families in food assistance programs.

As reported in The Defender, Kennedy said:

“These guidelines replace corporate-driven assumptions with common sense goals and gold-standard scientific integrity. These new guidelines will revolutionize our nation’s food culture and make America healthy again. For decades, Americans have grown sicker while healthcare costs have soared. The reason is clear: the hard truth is that our government has been lying to us to protect corporate profit-taking, telling us that these food-like substances were beneficial to public health. Federal policy promoted and subsidized highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates and turned a blind eye to the disastrous consequences. Today, the lies stop.”

The new guidelines emphasize eating real food, without added sugars, industrial oils, artificial flavors, or preservatives. Every American should eat 1.2-1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, along with healthy fats such as eggs, fish, meat, full-fat dairy, nuts, seeds, olives, and avocados.

Conclusion

According to American Public Health Association, “The U.S. spends more on health care but has worse health outcomes than comparable countries around the globe. This holds true across age and income groups.” HHS changes in vaccine policy and nutrition guidelines in 2025 provide evidence that Big Pharma and Big Food have captured the U.S. government for decades to sell products for profit that caused a national chronic disease epidemic. Sponsored media will continue to advertise unsafe drugs and unhealthy processed food products. For many people, it is difficult to understand that the medical industry profits from chronic disease and therefore will resist these changes. It is now up to Americans to choose doctors who are willing to embrace these new recommendations for better health outcomes.