Mississippi pediatricians are backing fall vaccination recommendations from a coalition of leading medical groups as the nation’s traditional federal vaccine advisory system remains in limbo.  Historically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its vaccine advisory committee have issued guidance on seasonal immunization. But the vaccine advisory committee is no longer functioning after a federal judge ruled in March that Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. unlawfully altered vaccine policy and improperly replaced all members of the committee. In August, against advice from medical organizations, President Donald Trump signed an executive order advocating for spacing out childhood measles, mumps and rubella vaccines into three separate visits, and calling on the nation’s health department to present a plan offering this regimen to families. In the vaccine advisory group’s absence, several major U.S. medical associations released guidance on flu season vaccine recommendations Wednesday. Mississippi pediatricians have voiced support of the coalition’s efforts.  “The bottom line is we recommend that all children and adults ages 6 months and up get their fall flu vaccine,” said Dr. Anita Henderson, a Hattiesburg pediatrician and former president of the Mississippi chapter for the American Academy of Pediatrics. “And then for the pediatric population in particular, it’s really important to protect your baby against RSV,” or respiratory syncytial virus.  Henderson said the lack of national leadership is “100% contributing to the problem” of declining childhood vaccination rates across the country. Only 10 states have kindergarten vaccination rates above 95%, the threshold needed to prevent outbreaks of measles, a highly contagious and life-threatening virus. Mississippi is one of those states, but vaccination rates in the state fell nearly half a percentage point during the 2025-26 school year.  Henderson’s message to parents is to seek the advice of their physicians and tune out the noise of influencers on social media taking advantage of an increasingly politicized issue.  “Nothing has changed as far as what your pediatrician is recommending,” Henderson said. “We will continue to follow evidence-based medicine and science. We are pediatricians, we’re not politicians.” Recommendations from four major medical associations – American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America – include: Annual flu vaccines for adults and children 6 months and older;  One-time RSV antibody shots for newborns, as well as RSV vaccines for adults 75 and older and those who are immunocompromised;  Annual Covid-19 vaccines for adults 19 and older, especially those who are at an increased risk for severe disease.  Before the Trump administration’s overhaul of the CDC and federal childhood vaccine policies, Mississippi’s childhood vaccine rates have been declining for the past three years. In 2023, the state started granting religious exemptions for school vaccine requirements.  Overall, Mississippi’s rates are still high compared to the rest of the nation. But eight counties have fallen below a measles vaccine coverage rate of 95% among kindergartners. Those counties include Franklin, George, Jackson, Lincoln, Pontotoc, Tate, Tishomingo and Webster.  This fall, doctors say parents should pay attention to RSV, a leading cause of infant hospitalizations that can cause long-term consequences, such as lung damage and asthma. Additionally, severe cases of the flu can cause long-term consequences, including organ damage and heightened risk of heart attacks and strokes. People often forget how dangerous the flu can be, said Dr. Patricia Tibbs, president of the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Despite what she calls an uphill battle to keep vaccine rates up, Tibbs said it’s “been so awesome to watch” the way that medical organizations have banded together so quickly to fill a void left by more than a year of disruptions to federal infrastructure. She hopes that the groups’ recommendations hold the same weight for parents that recommendations from the CDC historically have. “Let us not go back to the dark ages when these vaccine-preventable illnesses were killing children,” Tibbs said. ...read more read less