Dr. Martin Kulldorff, who leads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel, said in a new interview that school vaccine mandates are “not necessary.”
The comments signal an apparent about-face for CDC leadership, which has broadly supported children’s vaccination efforts throughout its history. Authority over school vaccine mandates rests with state and local governments, though the CDC makes recommendations on which shots should be required.
Kulldorff said that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices “should make recommendations based on what we think is best for children.”
“I don’t think we should be involved at all in mandating any vaccines,” he added in an exclusive interview with Politico on Wednesday.
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He also railed against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, saying the temporary restrictions “were both unscientific and unethical” and said they sparked backlash that public health authorities still deal with today.
In response to a question about ACIP’s recommendations being utilized by states to set their school vaccine schedules, Kulldorff compared the United States to Sweden, a country with a socialized health care system but no school vaccine mandates.
“People are very confident in the vaccine schedule they have in Sweden. There are no mandates in schools. So I think mandates are not necessary,” he told Politico. “You can have high vaccination coverage without mandates.”
Kulldorff said despite being nominated by Kennedy, he doesn’t speak with the Health Secretary regularly and has only met him twice. In the wide-ranging interview, Kulldorff repeatedly emphasized that he sees himself as an independent voice.
“ACIP is an independent committee of independent scientists. We don’t work for the government,” he told Politico. “Most people have an academic appointment somewhere or some other position. We’re there to give independent advice to the CDC director on vaccine recommendations.”
His comments against vaccine mandates come after at least two Republican states have moved to ban all school vaccine mandates. In April, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed the Idaho Medical Freedom Act into law, making it illegal for state and local governments, private businesses, employers, schools and day cares to require anyone to receive a vaccine or any other type of “medical intervention.”
Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund and an author of the new Idaho law, said in an interview with ProPublica that her goal is to get people to “understand and appreciate that the most basic and fundamental of human rights is the right to direct our own medical treatment — and to codify that in law in every state.”
“Breaking that barrier in Idaho proves that it can be done, that Americans understand the importance of this, and the humanity of it, and that it should be done in other states,” Manookian continued.
Florida officials followed suit in September, announcing they would begin phasing out school-mandated vaccines. At a press conference announcing the news, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo likened the mandates to slavery.
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said. “Who am I as a government or anyone else, or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what to do with your body?”
Some Republicans in Congress have spoken out against the Trump administration’s health care policy.
Sen. Thom Tillis in early September called Florida’s ban on school vaccine mandates a “horrible idea.”
“Vaccinations have proven to be — the basic ones — helpful in preventing the spread of measles, polio and other things,” Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said. “My children are vaccinated, my grandchildren are vaccinated. I don’t agree with that.”
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