As school starts up again and temperatures (hopefully) start to drop, with it comes the annual rise in airborne sickness — but luckily there’s also a crop of updated vaccines to prevent sickness, hospitalization and death. This year is no exception as the Food and Drug Administration has recently approved vaccines for flu, RSV and COVID-19, which will be available in pharmacies and doctor’s offices soon. Most insurers are expected to cover the cost. COVID cases are rising across the U.S., though RSV and flu cases remain low for now.
Also around this time of year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues public guidance to persuade people to prevent the preventable and get yearly shots, advice accompanied by data proving their safety and effectiveness. But in 2026, that has yet to happen, thanks to an ongoing overhaul of how the Trump administration recommends vaccines.
An ongoing lawsuit that blocked Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempts to reduce the number of vaccines children routinely receive has also meant that federal agencies can’t issue recommendations as the suit is litigated. Some public health experts have feared this would disrupt or delay vaccine approvals. So far that hasn’t happened, but experts argue the lack of accompanied public messaging could still dissuade some people from keeping up-to-date on their vaccinations. The CDC on Tuesday did extend the 2025 recommendations for the flu vaccines to 2026, but otherwise, the administration has been silent on the issue.
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Now independent medical groups are stepping up with their own recommendations, emphasizing the shots are safe and people who are eligible should get them. On Wednesday, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America simultaneously issued guidelines in various medical journals.
The Vaccine Integrity Project, for example, concluded that the newest versions of the COVID, RSV and flu vaccines work at reducing severe illness, hospitalization and death, they concluded in the journal JAMA.
“Americans are hearing conflicting messages about vaccines right now, and it’s understandable that people are asking whom they should trust,” Dr. Bruce Gellin of the Vaccine Integrity Project told NPR. “Americans should have access to the best available scientific evidence.”
“At a moment when much of the national conversation about vaccines has become political, what has happened this year offers a different model,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, executive director of the Vaccine Integrity Project, wrote in an op-ed. “Scientists, physicians, public health experts and medical organizations recognized a gap and worked together to fill it.”
Vaccines will likely continue to be a contentious issue in the U.S., even as the nation is rocked by accelerating and record-shattering measles outbreaks. Approximately 94% of measles cases this year have been individuals without vaccination or unknown vaccination status.
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