US health officials appear to be shying away from voicing negative views of vaccines in public as November’s midterm elections loom and key polling indicates anti-vaccine views are a liability.
Health officials have made unprecedented changes to routine vaccine recommendations in the past year – slashing one-third of the US childhood schedule, including the recommendation for hepatitis B immunization at birth. But even before a federal judge essentially invalidated these moves, officials haven’t championed their dramatic changes after Donald Trump’s pollsters recommended veering away from anti-vaccine ideology ahead of the midterms.
