The Vaccine Recommendations Are Out. Now Comes the Hard Part.

Last week, leading medical societies did something both unusual and indispensable: The American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Infectious Diseases Society of America coordinated the release of their recommendations for influenza, COVID-19, and RSV immunization for the coming respiratory virus season.

Those recommendations were informed by an independent evidence review led by the Vaccine Integrity Project, in collaboration with the American Medical Association (AMA), and delivered in the absence of guidance from CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — historically the source of data-based vaccine recommendations.

Immunizations against flu, COVID, and RSV continue to reduce the risk of severe disease and hospitalization, and our review found no new safety concerns in comparative studies, making a strong case for vaccination. But publishing recommendations based on the sound science in the vaccine evidence review is only the first step. Now comes the harder part.

It’s Tough Now — and It May Get Tougher

The federal vaccine review and recommendation process broke down last year. Now it has eroded even further.

In March 2026, a federal judge stayed the appointments of 13 members of the reconstituted ACIP, along with their previous votes, and suspended implementation of HHS’s childhood immunization schedule. The federal government has appealed, with oral arguments scheduled for October 6.

Meanwhile, HHS appears to be exploring ways to reshape how vaccine recommendations are made. An August Federal Register notice asks whether the government should change the categories used for vaccine recommendations and how vaccines should be assigned to them — questions traditionally considered through the ACIP process, with scientific evidence examined publicly by subject-matter experts.

At the same time, messages from the highest levels of government are making the work of clinicians more difficult. Amid Pennsylvania’s worst measles outbreak in decades, instead of focusing on getting more people vaccinated, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent days disputing the state’s measles-associated deaths. Meanwhile, President Trump suggested last month, during the rollout of an executive order on immunizations, that the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine could be “quite lethal.” There is no evidence to suggest that.

These messages matter. When government leaders minimize vaccine-preventable diseases and make unsupported claims about vaccine risks, the resulting confusion doesn’t remain in Washington. It follows patients into pharmacies, pediatricians’ offices, obstetric practices, and family medicine clinics across the country.

That is the environment in which we will operate this fall. And it’s more likely to get worse than better.

Meeting the Challenge

There is some encouraging news. Last fall, medical societies and other organizations came together quickly as the traditional federal vaccine-recommendation process began to break down. This year, we started earlier.

The societies coordinated the release of their recommendations with our vaccine evidence review ahead of respiratory virus season, and the societies will be engaging their members to make sure they’re up to date on what’s being recommended. The AMA created SpreadTheFacts.org, which assembles those recommendations in one place, along with practical resources clinicians and public health professionals can use to answer questions. Meanwhile, insurers have indicated they plan to cover fall immunizations.

And at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, we’re working with the communicators at Unbiased Science to answer people’s flu, COVID, and RSV questions on social media.

That infrastructure matters. But websites and evidence reviews don’t vaccinate people. People do.

For many Americans, the most trusted source of health information remains someone they know: their physician, nurse, pharmacist, or another health professional in their community. This fall, in the absence of federal immunization campaigns — where vaccination may be less convenient in some communities — those conversations will matter more than ever.

To protect more people from flu, SARS-CoV-2, and RSV, everyone in healthcare and public health who believes vaccines can help shield Americans from the worst consequences of these viruses must shoulder the communication challenge.

That includes physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and public health workers. But it also includes the person answering the telephone in a doctor’s office, the medical assistant checking a patient in, and the scheduler asking whether someone should make an appointment for a flu shot.

People will have questions. It’s important that we listen. Some will have heard that COVID-19 is no longer dangerous, despite CDC estimates showing that it hospitalized at least 150,000 people during the last respiratory virus season. Others may have encountered claims that vaccines cause more harm than the diseases they prevent. Parents may wonder why their pediatrician recommends something different from what they heard from a federal official.

Questions are opportunities. We need to be ready with empathy, facts, and patience.

Every point of contact in the healthcare chain should be able to explain what influenza, COVID-19, and RSV are doing in our communities and who is most likely to become seriously ill. We should understand what the evidence tells us about how well immunization reduces hospitalization and severe disease. And we should be prepared to discuss vaccine safety candidly, including what we know, what we don’t know, and how safety continues to be monitored.

The conversation also needs to be specific to the person asking the question. Good vaccine communication starts by listening and putting the evidence into a context that matters to that individual or family.

This respiratory virus season, we have the evidence. We have recommendations from the nation’s leading medical societies. We have better tools to help explain both. Now we need to use them.We need to listen carefully, encourage vaccination supported by evidence, and be ready with clear answers about the diseases we are trying to prevent and the vaccines we use to prevent them.

In an environment of confusion, clarity is a public health intervention. And this respiratory virus season, providing it is a responsibility all of us in healthcare and public health share.