The American Academy of Pediatrics’ decision to break with federal guidance on recommend COVID-19 vaccinations for young children represents more than a policy disagreement.

This unprecedented divergence — the first substantial break between the academy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations in three decades — illuminates a deeper crisis: What happens when public health guardians become captured by ideology rather than guided by evidence?

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ position becomes comprehensible within the context of systematic dismantling of established scientific review processes.

When Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the entire 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with seven appointees including vaccine skeptics, he fundamentally altered the foundation of federal vaccine policy.

The subsequent exclusion of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association and other medical organizations from advisory roles represents regulatory capture in reverse: ideology capturing the regulatory apparatus.

This forced the academy into an untenable position: Maintain traditional deference to federal guidance — thereby endorsing recommendations they viewed as scientifically unsound — or assert independent authority based on evidence review. Their choice reveals institutional resilience when democratic norms governing scientific policy-making collapse.

What makes the academy’s stance compelling is its methodological conservatism. The organization didn’t abandon evidence-based medicine; it doubled down on it.

Their

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