How and Why to Vaccinate Now
What Next
Slate Podcasts
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Where do you turn for vaccination advice for your kids—or yourself—when the government’s own recommendations can’t be trusted anymore?
Guest: Dr. Lauren Hughes, board-certified pediatrician, science communicator, and author of “The Public Hughesletter.”
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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Dr. Lauren Hughes is very good at introducing herself. If you have a toddler, I want you to listen to me for a second. My name is Dr. Lauren Hughes. I'm a board-certified pediatrician. I'm a mom with three previous toddlers. I'm going to give you some advice. My name is Dr. Lauren Hughes. I am a board-certified pediatrician. My name is Dr. Lauren Hughes. I'm a board-certified pediatrician. I'm here to simplify it for you. |
| 0:23.9 | My name is Dr. Lauren Hughes, I am a board certified pediatrician. My name is Dr. Lauren Hughes. I'm a board |
| 0:21.3 | certified pediatrician. I'm here to simplify it for you. My name is Dr. Lauren Hughes. I am a board |
| 0:25.9 | certified pediatrician. Here we go. So when I got her on the line, I had her do it again. |
| 0:32.9 | So I am Dr. Lauren Hughes. I am a board certified pediatrician. I own Bloom Pediatrics, which is a direct primary care clinic in Kansas City. And I have three kids. And I am now a science communicator on social media. |
| 0:50.1 | I follow Dr. Hughes because she is someone who does not mince words. |
| 0:55.0 | And I was struck by this Instagram reel she posted after the Trump administration changed the CDC vaccine schedule. |
| 1:02.0 | That's the federal guidance for routine childhood vaccinations. |
| 1:06.2 | It went from 17 vaccines to 11. |
| 1:09.7 | As pediatricians, we are not bound to the CDC schedule by law. |
| 1:14.5 | It is a guideline that has historically been rooted in science and evidence, the best |
| 1:19.8 | possible evidence that we have. |
| 1:21.5 | That is no longer the case. |
| 1:22.9 | The AAP has a schedule that most, if not all, pediatricians worth their soul, will be following. |
| 1:30.2 | And it made me wonder, when you were training, when you were in med school and residency, |
| 1:36.2 | like, could you even imagine this scenario that you're now finding yourself in? |
| 1:41.0 | I can barely believe it now. No. I, like, I never, ever saw a point where I could not |
| 1:50.0 | depend on the CDC, where I could not know that where the information I was getting was accurate. |
| 1:56.1 | And that's not to say that the scientists, that there are not producing accurate results. |
| 2:00.4 | Like, that's not what I am |
| 2:01.5 | saying. What I'm saying is that what is getting published is no longer something that I can trust. |
| 2:06.9 | And I never foresaw that as a possible, even as a, like it's a something that could happen. |
... |
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