Leading OB-GYN group breaks from CDC on maternal vaccination schedule

The leading professional organization for obstetricians and gynecologists in the US has launched its first maternal vaccination schedule and diverged for the first time from federal recommendations. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has long recommended giving the shots during pregnancy, but this is the first time releasing them as an official schedule. The Trump administration, under the leadership of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine critic, dropped its recommendations for flu and Covid shots. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which offers recommendations to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was planning to focus next on vaccines for pregnant people before the committee was halted by a judge’s order. Tracy Beth Høeg, a sports medicine physician who oversaw an investigation into vaccines at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) until she was fired in May, claimed without rigorous data that the RSV vaccine was deadly for babies. The first study using real-world data in the US, published last week in Jama Network Open, found that RSV vaccination during pregnancy is 68% effective against hospitalization in babies under the age of three months. …