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As a pediatrician, I have seen newborns struggle for their first breath, infants cry after their first vaccination, and adolescents struggle with depression. I have been there both for the sleepless nights of worried parents and for the heartbreak of a young life cut too short.

I write today as a scientist and clinician struggling both with anguish and exasperation because the Department of Health and Human Services, under the stewardship — or rather, the sabotage — of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has overtly and capriciously turned its back on children.

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Limiting access to COVID-19 vaccines for children is not a simple policy decision; it is a frank abandonment of evidenced-based medicine. It is not cost-saving; it is life-risking. And it is not about freedom; it is about fearmongering, cloaked in pseudo-scientific rhetoric that has no place in public health discourse.

Kennedy promised during his confirmation hearing to “restore trust” in our public health institutions.........

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