The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a report recommending a nationwide ban on nonmedical exemptions from vaccines.
The report, published in the August 2025 issue of Pediatrics, argues the geographical clustering of unvaccinated children results in larger communities with “insufficient” vaccination rates for disease prevention, causing “greater likelihood of disease outbreaks.”
In states where vaccine requirements are less stringent, “nonmedical exemptions erode the safety of school environments,” the report states. In addition, the “heterogeneous implementation of these policies across states and locales creates a confusing legal environment for children, parents, and pediatricians,” the report says.
AAP “advocates for the elimination of nonmedical exemptions from immunizations as contrary to optimal individual and public health,” the report states. The organization called for all 50 states, territories, and DC to impose bans.
Dueling Recommendations
In May, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the federal government no longer recommends COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children. In response, the AAP released its own vaccination guidelines, calling for the continued use of COVID-19 vaccines for children.
In an August 19 news release, the AAP said it had to create its own guidelines because Kennedy fired all members of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) this spring and replaced them with “individuals who have a history of spreading vaccine misinformation,” as the AAP put it.
In addition to the guidelines and the call for eliminating nonmedical vaccine exemptions, AAP and multiple other major medical groups filed a federal lawsuit in July challenging the revised COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.
The first meeting of Kennedy’s newly appointed ACIP resulted in no major changes to the schedule for pediatric vaccines.
Medical Big Brother
The AAP report is “in apparent disregard to parent rights, religious rights, patient rights, and constitutional rights,” said Twila Brase, president and cofounder of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom.
“This position views America’s children and parents as government subjects who must submit to injections, regardless of risk, personal choice, or religious convictions,” said Brase. “Government vaccination mandates are bad medicine and antithetical to individual freedom protected by the Constitution.”
AAP’s claim that its plan “constrains parental authority as little as possible while attempting to optimize the public health benefit” is disingenuous, says Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“Eliminating all nonmedical exemptions means eliminating virtually all exemptions, because so few medical exemptions are officially recognized and doctors can lose their licenses for writing too many,” said Orient. “This is an outrageous violation of religious freedom. … It is also a violation of human rights in general to force people to have their bodily integrity violated or to accept risks exceeding any benefit they might gain in order to hypothetically benefit someone else.”
‘Taking a Fresh Look’
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) says it considers vaccines a “successful mainstay of preventative healthcare” and the group is “committed to taking a fresh look at their safety and effectiveness based on the latest data,” said Jill Simons, M.D., the organization’s executive director.
“We also support the rights of parents to make truly informed decisions for themselves and their families, including the right to religious or moral exemptions from vaccines,” said Simons.
‘Arbitrary and Capricious’
Current litigation could stymie the AAP’s plan. Two pediatricians filed a federal lawsuit on August 15 challenging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) childhood vaccine schedule in its entirety. The suit calls the framework “arbitrary and capricious” and a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because it does not consider vaccine safety and imposes rules outside the rulemaking process.
The plaintiffs, Paul Thomas, M.D., and Kenneth Stoller, M.D., filed their case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.
The federal schedule recommends more than 72 vaccines for children. The suit claims the CDC has failed to provide vaccine safety reports two times a year based on its own guidelines and says no high-quality studies are comparing fully vaccinated and unvaccinated children. The suit claims Thomas faced license suspension after he published a study critical of childhood vaccines, and a medical board revoked Stoller’s license to practice when he tried to use genetic markers to protect children from vaccines that could harm them.
“Unable to defend their position scientifically, the medical establishment now seeks total control,” the lawsuit states, specifically citing the AAP’s recent report on exemptions.
Vaccine Politics
While claiming to be apolitical, the AAP has taken positions on multiple hot-button issues in recent years, such as promoting gender medicine and advocating gun control. The AAP’s position that children and parents must submit to injections regardless of risk, personal choice, or religious convictions may reflect the influence of government funding, says Brase.
“In 2018, AAP reported $121.8 million in revenue, with $20.5 million coming from government grants,” said Brase. “The AAP appears to be working hand-in-glove with the government and not for children or the parents who love them.”
Vaccine mandates are difficult to justify, says Orient.
“Most of the vaccines in the sacred schedule are for conditions that are rare, mild, treatable, or not transmitted in a school setting,” said Orient. “There is no public-health justification for requiring them.
“The AAP is selling out its responsibility for children,” said Orient. “They are in deep denial about the significant and mounting evidence of serious vaccine harms.”
Ashley Bateman ([email protected]) writes from Virginia.
