Just three immunization-loving American scientists expressing professional concern and moral contempt for the European Country-ization of the US childhood vaccine schedule
This is not rhetorical excess or partisan hyperbole. Parents have always had informed consent and the ability to decline vaccines. What is new is the quiet dismantling of evidence based recommendations, repackaged under the label of “shared clinical decision making.”
The childhood vaccine schedule was never a mandate. It was a scientifically grounded public health tool designed to protect children and communities. Bypassing ACIP, politicizing risk assessment, and signaling skepticism from federal leadership predictably erodes trust, access, and uptake.
The result is not freedom. It is preventable disease, widening inequity, and avoidable harm. Public health failures rarely arrive dramatically. They unfold incrementally, through procedural changes framed as reasonable reform. The damage becomes visible later, in outbreaks, disparities, and preventable deaths.
Calling this reform does not make it so. It is the systematic weakening of public health infrastructure, and the consequences are neither theoretical nor hyperbolic. They are historical.
Well stated …once again…borrowing from Dr. Faust, “the science has not changed but the politics have”!
Truly, beyond sad. The early months & yr's of the CoVID pandemic remain a stark memory yet what is in some aspects a continuation in that the seeds for the next wave of epidemics are being planted
Although I share your concerns about the US health secretary, as a citizen of a country in Europe, I find this paragraph of concern, “Just three immunization-loving American scientists expressing professional concern and moral contempt for the European Country-ization of the US childhood vaccine schedule”. Moral contempt, why? Are you suggesting that the USA vaccination programme is superior to the European models and therefore the European countries’ vaccination programmes are inherently dangerously incomplete for our children?
I think this may be a misunderstanding of Dr. Rasmussen’s point. The concern is not that European vaccination programs are inferior or dangerous, nor that the US schedule is inherently “better.”
The issue is that vaccine schedules are designed within specific health care systems, disease burdens, access structures, and population risks. Simply invoking “Europe” or “Denmark” as a justification to weaken evidence based recommendations in the US, without context or process, is neither scientifically sound nor ethically neutral.
The moral concern is about bypassing independent review, politicizing risk assessment, and using another country’s model as rhetorical cover to undermine public confidence and access in a very different system. That is a critique of process and intent, not of European public health.
Many European programs work well precisely because they are embedded in robust, universal health systems. That context cannot be selectively imported to justify dismantling safeguards elsewhere.
If that’s the case the I think the wording could have been better, it did read as being somewhat ambiguous and disrespectful.
However, if that is what was meant then I would agree, there should be a common core possibly globally, with additions depending on local conditions. Within the USA, for example that could be on a state by state basis. In the U.K. we do have additions to our schedule, a child who has a parent or grandparent that is a first generation immigrant with south Asian heritage will be vaccinated against TB. If a pregnant woman is found to be hepatitis B positive then the baby will be vaccinated within 24 hours of birth.
If the current US administration is really serious about the health of the population then all childhood vaccinations should be funded by the federal government. There should be a federal core vaccination programme with variations at state, commonwealth or DC level based on any specific additional risks.
The reference to Denmark was based on the Trump administration's stated desire to align the US vaccine schedule with Denmark as a "peer" nation, when in fact it has a different form of government, a different population, different risks, and a different healthcare system. It is a democratic social welfare state with a much smaller, less diverse population and a nationalized health care system. I was not knocking Denmark, but rather the idea that the US should copy their vaccine schedule for no other reason than an unqualified woman at FDA who loves Denmark thinks we should.
The "European Country"-ization remark was a reference to President Trump's post about it:
Trump's post was both incorrect (American babies do not get 72 shots, which we discuss at length). Denmark—or any other European country—is not the US. I live in Canada, which is also not the US. My moral contempt referred to Kennedy's unilateral decision to deschedule 7 vaccines for no reason other than "let's copy Denmark." That is not how Denmark makes its vaccine schedule—Danish scientists and health officials use evidence-based methods tailored to Danish risks and intended to maximize Danish benefits. This is the same approach the US used to use. Countries should recommend vaccines based on their own needs, for their own people.
In my defense it was 2 am after a very long day, but I'll try to be more clear in the future. It was not my intent to offend my non-US readers!
I answered above. "Socialist" refers to the Danish welfare state. Why is it sinister to mention Denmark? Denmark is cited repeatedly as a model vaccine schedule in the HHS decision statement and in the fact sheet that accompanied the Presidential memo ordering the change. Denmark is mentioned because Tracy Beth Høeg, the FDA's top drug regulator and a Danish dual citizen, has repeatedly advocated adopting the Danish schedule, including at the last Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices meeting. I wrote about this about a month ago:
The FDA completely legitimizing wellness industry pseudoscience’
BY ANDREA LOVE
Andrea Love is a biomedical scientist and science communicator.
I think the Black Swan for 2026 is already underway: the FDA completely legitimizing wellness industry pseudoscience. Already, we’ve been seeing the FDA encouraging people to conflate pseudoscience for evidence-based medicine as FDA Commissioner Marty Makary erases the boundary between evidence-based medicine and the wellness industry under the guise of access, innovation and “repairing trust.” He and others are positioning the FDA not as a scientific safety guardrail, but a facilitator of “health choice.” They frame evidence standards as elitist, favoring anecdotal claims to justify unscientific policy changes that will endanger the public.
There are early signals: enthusiasm to relax regulatory requirements for FDA approval; moving to fast-track direct-to-consumer health tests that lack clinical validation; and elevating supplements to quasi-therapeutics rather than unproven and potentially unsafe products immune from oversight thanks to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. If FDA leadership erases the remaining guardrails that exist, expect a rapid expansion of FDA-adjacent products that appear legitimate to the public. People will not be empowered — they will be less healthy.
What makes this a Black Swan is that people will believe they are still following science as these claims come from our federal health agencies. People will make health decisions based on falsehoods rather than validated evidence. Patients will delay or refuse effective care, opting instead for cleverly marketed products that carry a false sense of legitimacy. By the time these harms are apparent at a population level, these policy changes will be normalized — and potentially irreparable.
As noted below: The damage becomes visible later.....
“The abrupt change to the entire U.S. childhood vaccine schedule is alarming, unnecessary, and will endanger the health of children in the United States,” said Dr. Helen Chu, a physician and immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a former member of the federal vaccine advisory committee.
This is a KAKISTOCRACY, i.e., government by the worst possible people. We need to use that word, repeatedly and universally. They are in the business of injecting termites of doubt into the foundation of our public health care system, and then watching with perverse glee as people get sick while they line their own pockets.
The kakistocracy does not "erroneously" claim anything. They do not make "misstatements." They are not "unscientific." They don't "misrepresent." THEY ARE LIARS. They all live in a place called MENDACITY. And they do all this DELIBERATELY. They lie BECAUSE THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT. They are nothing but malevolent mercenaries. SOCIOPATHS. They all need to be permanently removed from the stream of interpersonal commerce.
Thank you. I'm an elderly Brit retired in China. I spent my whole life working with wonderful Americans who were fully vaxed. But my oldest American friend is a Trumper and probably an anti vaxer. It pains me to see her absorbing all this cr49 from Trump and RFK Jr. I do what I can to share real science and health on my Facebook page but few show any interest. God bless you all.
Hogue etc against school closures: every numbskull knows that schools are incubators for infectious diseases. BUT today lots of schools are closing because of incidence of measles and flu. Duh.
International: no one is safe until everyone is safe. Infectious diseases don't care about borders. USA CANNOT isolate itself from the rest of the world. They come in on countless planes everyday.
This is not rhetorical excess or partisan hyperbole. Parents have always had informed consent and the ability to decline vaccines. What is new is the quiet dismantling of evidence based recommendations, repackaged under the label of “shared clinical decision making.”
The childhood vaccine schedule was never a mandate. It was a scientifically grounded public health tool designed to protect children and communities. Bypassing ACIP, politicizing risk assessment, and signaling skepticism from federal leadership predictably erodes trust, access, and uptake.
The result is not freedom. It is preventable disease, widening inequity, and avoidable harm. Public health failures rarely arrive dramatically. They unfold incrementally, through procedural changes framed as reasonable reform. The damage becomes visible later, in outbreaks, disparities, and preventable deaths.
Calling this reform does not make it so. It is the systematic weakening of public health infrastructure, and the consequences are neither theoretical nor hyperbolic. They are historical.
Well stated …once again…borrowing from Dr. Faust, “the science has not changed but the politics have”!
Truly, beyond sad. The early months & yr's of the CoVID pandemic remain a stark memory yet what is in some aspects a continuation in that the seeds for the next wave of epidemics are being planted
JJF Phm 🇨🇦
Although I share your concerns about the US health secretary, as a citizen of a country in Europe, I find this paragraph of concern, “Just three immunization-loving American scientists expressing professional concern and moral contempt for the European Country-ization of the US childhood vaccine schedule”. Moral contempt, why? Are you suggesting that the USA vaccination programme is superior to the European models and therefore the European countries’ vaccination programmes are inherently dangerously incomplete for our children?
I think this may be a misunderstanding of Dr. Rasmussen’s point. The concern is not that European vaccination programs are inferior or dangerous, nor that the US schedule is inherently “better.”
The issue is that vaccine schedules are designed within specific health care systems, disease burdens, access structures, and population risks. Simply invoking “Europe” or “Denmark” as a justification to weaken evidence based recommendations in the US, without context or process, is neither scientifically sound nor ethically neutral.
The moral concern is about bypassing independent review, politicizing risk assessment, and using another country’s model as rhetorical cover to undermine public confidence and access in a very different system. That is a critique of process and intent, not of European public health.
Many European programs work well precisely because they are embedded in robust, universal health systems. That context cannot be selectively imported to justify dismantling safeguards elsewhere.
Well stated!
If that’s the case the I think the wording could have been better, it did read as being somewhat ambiguous and disrespectful.
However, if that is what was meant then I would agree, there should be a common core possibly globally, with additions depending on local conditions. Within the USA, for example that could be on a state by state basis. In the U.K. we do have additions to our schedule, a child who has a parent or grandparent that is a first generation immigrant with south Asian heritage will be vaccinated against TB. If a pregnant woman is found to be hepatitis B positive then the baby will be vaccinated within 24 hours of birth.
If the current US administration is really serious about the health of the population then all childhood vaccinations should be funded by the federal government. There should be a federal core vaccination programme with variations at state, commonwealth or DC level based on any specific additional risks.
The reference to Denmark was based on the Trump administration's stated desire to align the US vaccine schedule with Denmark as a "peer" nation, when in fact it has a different form of government, a different population, different risks, and a different healthcare system. It is a democratic social welfare state with a much smaller, less diverse population and a nationalized health care system. I was not knocking Denmark, but rather the idea that the US should copy their vaccine schedule for no other reason than an unqualified woman at FDA who loves Denmark thinks we should.
The "European Country"-ization remark was a reference to President Trump's post about it:
https://x.com/PressSec/status/2008306341769822620?s=20
Trump's post was both incorrect (American babies do not get 72 shots, which we discuss at length). Denmark—or any other European country—is not the US. I live in Canada, which is also not the US. My moral contempt referred to Kennedy's unilateral decision to deschedule 7 vaccines for no reason other than "let's copy Denmark." That is not how Denmark makes its vaccine schedule—Danish scientists and health officials use evidence-based methods tailored to Danish risks and intended to maximize Danish benefits. This is the same approach the US used to use. Countries should recommend vaccines based on their own needs, for their own people.
In my defense it was 2 am after a very long day, but I'll try to be more clear in the future. It was not my intent to offend my non-US readers!
I thought the same.
I also live within the EU and am fully vaccinated thanks to the wonderful NHS when I lived in Britain as a child.
there is something far more sinister at work given Denmark was mentioned.
And why specify it’s a “socialist” country ….?
The USA is increasingly isolated you will need to ensure to continue to link in with the EU and elsewhere.
I answered above. "Socialist" refers to the Danish welfare state. Why is it sinister to mention Denmark? Denmark is cited repeatedly as a model vaccine schedule in the HHS decision statement and in the fact sheet that accompanied the Presidential memo ordering the change. Denmark is mentioned because Tracy Beth Høeg, the FDA's top drug regulator and a Danish dual citizen, has repeatedly advocated adopting the Danish schedule, including at the last Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices meeting. I wrote about this about a month ago:
https://rasmussenretorts.substack.com/i/180797760/something-is-rotten-in-the-peer-state-of-denmark
The AAP Red Book is the sole resource on pediatric infectious disease untainted by the kakistocracy.
Recent scenario in Politico:
The FDA completely legitimizing wellness industry pseudoscience’
BY ANDREA LOVE
Andrea Love is a biomedical scientist and science communicator.
I think the Black Swan for 2026 is already underway: the FDA completely legitimizing wellness industry pseudoscience. Already, we’ve been seeing the FDA encouraging people to conflate pseudoscience for evidence-based medicine as FDA Commissioner Marty Makary erases the boundary between evidence-based medicine and the wellness industry under the guise of access, innovation and “repairing trust.” He and others are positioning the FDA not as a scientific safety guardrail, but a facilitator of “health choice.” They frame evidence standards as elitist, favoring anecdotal claims to justify unscientific policy changes that will endanger the public.
There are early signals: enthusiasm to relax regulatory requirements for FDA approval; moving to fast-track direct-to-consumer health tests that lack clinical validation; and elevating supplements to quasi-therapeutics rather than unproven and potentially unsafe products immune from oversight thanks to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. If FDA leadership erases the remaining guardrails that exist, expect a rapid expansion of FDA-adjacent products that appear legitimate to the public. People will not be empowered — they will be less healthy.
What makes this a Black Swan is that people will believe they are still following science as these claims come from our federal health agencies. People will make health decisions based on falsehoods rather than validated evidence. Patients will delay or refuse effective care, opting instead for cleverly marketed products that carry a false sense of legitimacy. By the time these harms are apparent at a population level, these policy changes will be normalized — and potentially irreparable.
As noted below: The damage becomes visible later.....
Great episode 💯
“The abrupt change to the entire U.S. childhood vaccine schedule is alarming, unnecessary, and will endanger the health of children in the United States,” said Dr. Helen Chu, a physician and immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a former member of the federal vaccine advisory committee.
This is a KAKISTOCRACY, i.e., government by the worst possible people. We need to use that word, repeatedly and universally. They are in the business of injecting termites of doubt into the foundation of our public health care system, and then watching with perverse glee as people get sick while they line their own pockets.
The kakistocracy does not "erroneously" claim anything. They do not make "misstatements." They are not "unscientific." They don't "misrepresent." THEY ARE LIARS. They all live in a place called MENDACITY. And they do all this DELIBERATELY. They lie BECAUSE THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT. They are nothing but malevolent mercenaries. SOCIOPATHS. They all need to be permanently removed from the stream of interpersonal commerce.
RFK Jr. is a modern-day Mengele.
Thank you.
It's very distressing that parents elsewhere in the world are taking their lead from US vaccine policy.
Thank you. I'm an elderly Brit retired in China. I spent my whole life working with wonderful Americans who were fully vaxed. But my oldest American friend is a Trumper and probably an anti vaxer. It pains me to see her absorbing all this cr49 from Trump and RFK Jr. I do what I can to share real science and health on my Facebook page but few show any interest. God bless you all.
Hogue etc against school closures: every numbskull knows that schools are incubators for infectious diseases. BUT today lots of schools are closing because of incidence of measles and flu. Duh.
Thank you so much. I hope this gets widely distributed. Blessings.
International: no one is safe until everyone is safe. Infectious diseases don't care about borders. USA CANNOT isolate itself from the rest of the world. They come in on countless planes everyday.