The U.S. government is creating mass confusion about vaccines

Let us introduce ourselves. We are the doctors you trust with your health and the health of your family across every stage of life, from the first checkups in infancy and childhood, to health care during pregnancy and adulthood, through management of chronic illness and aging. We are family physicians, pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, OB-GYNs, and infectious disease experts. Our commitment is not to politics, but to the absolute well-being of our patients and populations, and to providing them with best evidence-based health care.

We have an urgent, united message: Immunizations work, they are very effective and safe, and they save lives. Vaccines are among the most rigorously studied and effective tools in public health. Through widespread immunization, we have eradicated debilitating and fatal diseases that once caused serious illness, hospitalization, and death for millions of people.

But today, that legacy is at serious risk.

Misinformation, politicization of commonsense public health efforts, and sudden changes to federal vaccine guidance is creating mass confusion and diminishing trust in public health. As we head into another fall season sure to be marked by cases of flu, Covid-19, and RSV as well as the alarming reappearance of measles and pertussis, the stakes could not be higher. These respiratory illnesses are not abstract threats. They are real and dangerous, particularly to infants, seniors, pregnant patients and those with underlying health conditions.

We are the trusted physicians in the room when a parent hears that their child has pneumonia from RSV or pertussis. When a pregnant patient is hospitalized with preventable Covid-19 and influenza complications. When an older adult arrives in the ER with flu or RSV that could have been avoided. These are your parents, grandparents, infants, children, neighbors, and loved ones. They are you.

These are the people we care for every single day.

In moments of uncertainty, the role of trusted physicians becomes even more vital. Patients look to us for facts, based on our medical training and a review of the best available scientific evidence. They rely on our expertise to navigate conflicting messages, social media, and politicized headlines.

So let us be clear: Our organizations will strongly continue recommending vaccines. We will keep having conversations with patients and families across exam rooms, schools, and communities about what’s safe and what’s necessary to stay healthy and create populations of immunity.

We also call on our health system partners, including insurers, hospitals, pharmacies, and public health agencies, to do their part. Vaccines must remain available, accessible, and affordable to persons of all ages. Any barrier to immunization is a significant threat to public health.

We’ve seen what happens when that access is compromised. When immunization rates drop, significant outbreaks return. History has shown us that when trust in science falters, preventable disease rapidly spreads and people suffer needlessly.

That is why we will not stay silent. We will continue to speak the truth to policymakers. We will continue to have compassionate, honest conversations with families making health care decisions, and provide accurate, scientifically sound information to populations navigating swirling eddies of mis- and disinformation. Our role is not just to provide care, but to lead. Many of our organizations are working together to ensure our patients and our members have trusted guidance in the absence of reliable information.

We need strong, scientific, evidence-based public health leadership to guide this country forward. Because immunizations do more than protect individuals. When everyone in a community can be vaccinated, we can keep kids in school, workers on the job, hospital beds available, and terrible diseases from taking lives.

We cannot and will not gamble with our patients’ health or the health of our communities. We must lean into what we, as medical physicians and experts, know works, based on decades of evidence. It’s a time for clarity, consistency, and courage. And it’s a time for every health care leader to stand firmly in support of the science and vaccines that save lives.

We’re not going anywhere. And we won’t stop fighting for what’s right.

Jen Brull, M.D., is a family physician and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Susan J. Kressly, M.D., is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Jason Goldman, M.D., is an internal medicine physician and president of the American College of Physicians. Steven J. Fleischman, M.D., is president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Tina Q. Tan, M.D., is president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.