​WASHINGTON — Politics have largely stayed out of Julie Linton’s South Carolina pediatrician’s office over the years — that is, until recently. The Greenville physician has seen an uptick in the number of parents feeling reluctant or refusing to vaccinate their children.

Anti-vaccine messaging stemming from Washington, D.C., isn’t helping, she says.

“We have people at the highest levels of government sharing information that causes hesitancy, and that’s deeply troubling,” Linton said. “I worry very much about messaging aligning with science, and that’s not happening.”

Linton was one of dozens of pediatricians who came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to encourage lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to ensure continued access to routine shots for kids, a month after the Trump administration cleaned house at the leading federal vaccine advisory committee.

They came to warn lawmakers that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s move to replace the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel with some members skeptical of vaccines could hinder access to free shots for low-income children and children in military families. It could even lead to some private insurers no longer covering the shots, they said.

The CDC’s Vaccines for Children program and military health care program TRICARE both rely on that panel to determine which vaccines are available at no cost for children, and many private insurers do the same.

Although the vaccine drama has played out at agencies like CDC, Congress could step in.

A House bill from Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey and Kim Schrier of Washington aims to shield the vaccine panel from political interference by specifying its structure, membership selection process and meeting frequency and ensuring that HHS cannot override the committee’s decisions without sufficient explanation.

But such a move would require Republican buy-in, and there are no Republican cosponsors on the legislation.

Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware has said she plans to introduce a bill that would prevent the HHS secretary from terminating members of Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without cause and would require the secretary to reinstate the fired members.

In the weeks since the committee shake-up, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., has questioned the lack of scientific experience among the new committee members but hasn’t suggested legislation is needed. The pediatricians on Capitol Hill Tuesday said they hoped Republican members might use their influence with the administration to sway Kennedy.

A post-pandemic divide

Partisanship surrounding vaccinations, especially those for children, increased during the pandemic with skepticism surrounding the COVID-19 shots. Pediatricians say the dispute has spread to more routine immunizations, especially the measles, mumps and rubella shot.

Toni Richards-Rowley, the vice president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who participated in the Capitol Hill outreach, practices in Bucks County, a Republican-leaning area that she says is experiencing increased vaccine hesitancy.

“This is an issue born out of tremendous success with vaccines,” Richards-Rowley said, noting that many parents making vaccine decisions for their children have the benefit of past vaccine success against viruses that give rise to measles or whooping cough. But as more families decline vaccinations, diseases rebound.

Richards-Rowley said she and her colleagues now have to retrain themselves on how to treat ailments that were once considered extinct.

Raynard Washington, health director for Mecklenburg County in North Carolina, said in an interview that he’s seen a gradual increase in vaccine exemption requests for kids in public schools, especially religious exemptions, which don’t require extensive verification.

“We’re not seeing similar upticks in medical exemption,” he said. “So that’s sort of how we know it’s likely driven by vaccine hesitancy or resistance in the community.”

School nurses in the area are fielding more questions from families getting information from sources like TikTok, he said. The county has reacted with a program that trains “vaccine champions” to answer technical questions and respond to misinformation and disinformation in settings such as child care centers or faith communities.

Washington noted there was an effort in the North Carolina legislature to create a new category of vaccine exemptions for personal objections, which ultimately didn’t come to fruition. Republican lawmakers in the state also introduced a bill in February that would repeal the state’s vaccine requirements for college students.

Stoking the fire

As doctors sought to assure lawmakers of the benefits of immunization, some Republicans this week were focused on the opposite.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, held a hearing Tuesday titled “Voices of the Vaccine Injured,” featuring people who lost loved ones or had medical issues after being vaccinated.

“We all fear death and disease,” Johnson said in his opening remarks. “The appeal of a simple shot that can prevent both is obvious and powerful. Unfortunately this strong appeal has overridden critical thinking and prevented rigorous cost-benefit analysis from being done.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the hearing disrespectful and a disservice to public health.

“There have been persistent falsehoods about vaccines continuing to harm our communities. And this misinformation is not only driving down vaccination rates, it’s compromising research into the very harms that we need to prevent,” Blumenthal said.

Still, the senators on both sides of the aisle appeared to find common ground on reforming the vaccine injury compensation program, which allows people to submit claims about injuries from vaccines to see if they may be eligible for compensation.

Public health experts like Richard Besser, the president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former CDC official, see such hearings as further undermining trust in vaccination.

He said HELP chair Cassidy needs to call a hearing and hold Kennedy accountable for the sweeping changes he’s made to vaccine policy.

“I think that Congress is letting the American people down,” Besser said.

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