As federal health agencies revisit childhood vaccine schedules and emphasize shared clinical decision-making, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is encouraging hospitals to use pediatric admissions as a “unique opportunity” to vaccinate more children.
A series of AAP publications released in March and April promotes offering routine, catch-up and seasonal vaccines during children’s hospital stays and around surgeries and medical procedures.
But some physicians and vaccine safety advocates say the approach raises medical and ethical concerns, particularly for children already sick enough to require hospitalization.
A March 9 article in AAP News described “perioperative or periprocedural vaccination” as “a novel way to vaccinate children who are in a hospital environment for other reasons.”
Another March report in Hospital Pediatrics stated that “pediatric inpatient hospital admissions are opportunities for catch-up vaccination.”
The push comes as the AAP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have diverged on some vaccine recommendations, creating what an April AAP Publications report called “a more complex landscape for parental vaccine decision-making.”
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