In 2025, most American parents quietly rejected the CDC’s vaccine schedule—challenging government mandates, media pressure, and the myth that questioning equals denial.
The following ran in the Tuesday 3 June 2025 edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
When did asking questions about your child’s medical care become a political offense?
In today’s United States, disagreeing with the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule earns you labels like “anti-vaxxer” or “science denier.” That framing isn’t just dishonest—it’s intimidation. Millions of Americans aren’t rejecting all vaccines—they’re questioning how many and how soon. That’s not ignorance. That’s informed skepticism.
Start with the numbers. A child in the U.S. receives nearly three dozen vaccine doses by age six. In Germany, France, and the UK, it’s closer to a dozen. Why the difference? Are American children at greater risk? Or is our government more aggressive because of pharmaceutical lobbying, liability shields, and bureaucratic inertia?
Consider COVID-19. In 2024, the U.S. recommended COVID-19 shots for infants and toddlers— despite the infinitesimally small risk of severe illness in children and zero longitudinal trial data. Those vaccines were then, and still are, only authorized under Emergency Use Authorization for children under 12. Meanwhile, countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden discouraged COVID-19 vaccination for healthy kids altogether—the risks outweighed the gains.
U.S. parents noticed. As of April 2025, the CDC reported that only 13% of children ages 6 months to 17 years were up to date with the 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine. That’s a nationwide boycott. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that two-thirds of parents of children under age 5 said they would “definitely not” get their child the updated shot. Among parents of kids 5 to 11, 64% said the same; and 60% of parents refused to have their teenagers vaccinated.
This wasn’t due to ignorance. Parents made informed decisions—often against pressure from schools, doctors, and media. That’s discernment.
Then there’s the Hepatitis B (HepB) vaccine, given to U.S. newborns within 24 hours of birth. HepB is primarily a bloodborne disease, spread through sex, shared needles, or exposure to infected blood. A baby born to a HepB-negative mother has virtually zero risk. So why treat every newborn the same?
Simple: public health officials prioritize universal coverage to “protect the system” from liability or missed cases. Mass medication without regard for individual risk isn’t medicine—it’s bureaucracy posing as science.
Push back on any of this, and you’ll be smeared as a “vaccine denier.” But how is it denial to say a newborn doesn’t need protection from a disease he can’t catch? How is it denial to say the COVID-19 vaccine offers zero benefit to a two-year-old who’s already had the virus?
Words like “denier” aren’t meant to inform—they’re meant to shut you up.
This isn’t just a health debate. It’s a question of sovereignty. Who owns your body—and your child’s? You or the state? Should unelected officials dictate one-size-fits-all interventions, or should parents and doctors work together to make case-by-case decisions for each child’s distinct situation?
Centralized policy often ignores individual needs. The vaccine schedule is no exception. It discourages case-by-case thinking and treats disagreement as disobedience. The system doesn’t offer options—it delivers mandates disguised as recommendations.
There are plenty of valid reasons to question the current vaccine schedule:
- At 2- and 6-month visits, infants commonly receive up to seven vaccines. No double-blind study has ever tested the safety of stacking all seven vaccines at once in infants with immature immune systems.
- Vaccine safety trials often use another vaccine—not inert placebos—as controls, masking side effects.
- The U.S. has higher rates of autoimmune and neurodevelopmental disorders than many countries with lighter vaccine schedules.
- Informed consent is undermined by coercion—parents aren’t told it’s a recommendation; they’re told it’s law.
- The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act shields manufacturers from lawsuits, eliminating normal market accountability.
None of this is conspiracy. It’s policy—designed by bureaucrats, reinforced by liability shields, and rarely questioned by the media.
The real issue isn’t safety—it’s sovereignty. Do parents still have the right to decide when and which vaccines are appropriate for their child? In a free society, medical decisions should reflect individual risk, not institutional convenience.
America is overdue for a medical policy reset—one rooted in choice, not coercion. That starts by rejecting the false binary of “comply or deny” and restoring public health that respects autonomy and parental rights.
Disagreeing is not denial. It’s the beginning of wisdom.