Hello, everyone. I'm JVL here with my bulwark colleague, Jonathan Cohn, and we have news coming out of

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services. They have rejiggered the vaccine

schedule for American children. They are downgrading it from a recommendation of 17 vaccinations to 11 vaccinations.

They're cutting out a bunch of things, leaving some in.

Jonathan, this is all, I mean, it's slightly confusing.

And there are some nuances that we're going to get into.

But the very bottom line is, as of now, the government is going to recommend fewer vaccines,

which may make it harder for people to get their kids vaccinated to all the stuff that they would have gotten vaccinated a week ago.

Correct? Correct. Yes. I mean, I'll just take off some of the ones here

that are no longer covered. RSV, which I remember the days before the RSV vaccine. Miserable.

Meningococcal disease, Hep B, Hep B, HEP A, these things are now out. I think chicken pox and polio and MMR still in.

Yay.

Yay.

You could still get your measles vaccine.

So talk to me, Jonathan.

Was this, first of all, was this expected or is this a surprise?

Yeah, no, it was totally expected. They've been building up to this for a while now.

You know, if you remember back in early December, there was this big meeting of the advisory council that it's the official CDC committee of outside experts that, you know,

makes recommendations to the CDC director about what America's vaccine schedule should look like.

And at that meeting, and I remember that committee has been, you know, replaced, right?

Used to be all these very prominent outside experts, you know, widely respected scientist.

RFK Jr. came in. He sacked all of them. He stacked the committee with people who in one way

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