On December 17th, news broke from multiple sources that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was canceling $18 to $20 million worth of grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a non-profit funded largely by the pharmaceutical industry, which operates more as a trade group than an academic or scientific organization. The mainstream media framed this as a vengeful move by HHS Secretary Kennedy for AAP's criticism of his policies, but Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF) supports this move as a common-sense solution to reduce federal support to an increasingly biased, conflicted, and irresponsible organization.
With its $101 million in investments it can draw upon[1], and many non-governmental revenue streams from various publications, conferences, and "medical education" materials, AAP will easily survive. But it will do so without relying as heavily on tax-payer funds from the very people it has treated with disdain for decades.
Nothing could summarize the increasingly authoritarian position of the AAP as concisely as the 2025 policy recommendation to eliminate all non-medical exemptions for vaccination, as a requirement for school attendance, and to crack down on parents and children alike. Its efforts on this front have recently resulted in new legislation in Michigan to enshrine these authoritarian recommendations into law. HFDF argues that the AAP policy statement, like so many of its other publications, is poorly informed scientifically, and is morally and ethically unacceptable.
As an organization, AAP has been acting on behalf of its pharmaceutical industry donors for decades. Rather than listen to this trade group posing as a charity, state and local health authorities should embrace the wisdom of parents to make health decisions for their children, and deny calls by AAP in the summer of 2025 to immediately enforce "regulations" which would expel hundreds of thousands of students for non-compliance, restrict pediatrician's ability to support children as they secure exemptions, and even punish parents for minor vaccine document errors.
In the statement, AAP, insists that religious, philosophical, and other non-medical exemptions should be done away with entirely. The AAP argues that the overall claimed benefit of vaccination mandates against "VPDs"—dubiously-termed "vaccine preventable diseases"—warrants the removal of all exemptions, except those provided by a doctor's determination, under very strict rules.
If this policy were enacted in a given state, by placing all decision-making power in the hands of doctors, medical workers and health bureaucracies, and by increasing the fear of retaliation or negative consequences for non-compliance, it would be the final nail in the coffin of informed consent as it applies to vaccination in children. And most perniciously, it would do so to ensure adherence to the only medical products that can injure and kill without legal liability for injury or death.
HFDF asserts that the choice to take any medical product does not belong to a school, an employer, a service provider, a county health department, or to a federal bureaucracy; it belongs to the individual, and in the case of children, to their parents or guardians. AAP argues for these measures forcefully, but it does so without even trying to weigh the risks against the benefits of any particular vaccine or schedule, assuming the infallibility of the entire vaccination schedule at face value. This approach persists despite the disastrous and well-earned collapse in public trust, following the covid lockdowns and subsequent illegal mandates for novel mRNA injections.
Fortunately, this policy recommendation flies in the face of the enormous backlash among parents, states, and even national-level health authorities against the prevailing public health paradigm. It also clashes with the growing body of evidence showing that vaccination does not comprehensively prohibit illness, infection, or transmission of disease from occurring. The only claims they can make in terms of temporary immunity or lessened severity are qualified at best, and in no way challenge the critical right of informed consent and personal choice in medical treatment. AAP has tried this before, in 2017, AAP pushed its state advocacy policy, calling for "school entry immunization policies that ensure full immunization in the school setting according to current recommendations and discourage casual parental opt-out of school immunization requirements". No parent makes a medical decision for their child "casually"—rather, that is the approach of those who believe in "one-size-fits-all" medicine like AAP.
It should be clear that this latest push is designed explicitly to reduce the number of exemptions for children first and foremost, using expulsion from school, or parental harassment, as a looming threat. One could speculate about the motivation at play to have no large groups of children serving as an example of how thousands of kids can enjoy a healthy childhood without reliance on pharmaceutical products. Indeed, the few studies AAP cite to justify a linkage between more exemptions and higher disease rates are either unrelated to the issue at hand, or not scientifically compelling. The only study cited that actually focused on that question ended its abstract conclusion with the rather unimpressive and very qualified statement:
"The phenomenon of vaccine refusal was associated with an increased risk for measles among people who refuse vaccines and among fully vaccinated individuals. Although pertussis resurgence has been attributed to waning immunity and other factors, vaccine refusal was still associated with an increased risk for pertussis in some populations" [emphasis added].
Also in that study looking at 15 years of measles data, 43% of those with measles had been vaccinated. For the AAP, this laughable data justifies undoing the entire tradition and expectation of personal medical autonomy and informed consent.
Tellingly, in this policy note, there is no mention of widespread parental concerns about the vaccination paradigm writ large in terms of side effects and link to chronic illness, nor lack of liability for manufacturers. They also do not seem to be aware of the lack of accountability for local or state health authorities under the PREP act, and the rushed public process for rolling out novel vaccination with mRNA technologies, with safety notices showing up for myocarditis 4 years too late. Nor have they apparently seen the polls that show only 40% of parents plan to follow all the vaccine recommendations from the CDC[2]. From reading this one-sided policy from AAP, one would assume there is a broad public consensus, and there are only benefits from vaccination, with no risks worth considering.
AAP's War on Parental Choice
AAP claims to act on children's behalf, but in this policy note it directly threatens millions of parents. It does so by calling for robust enforcement of state health laws and regulations, and therefore for the expulsion of non-compliant children. Disturbingly, this would directly result in the arrest and imprisonment of parents whose records may be inaccurate or out of date when submitted. Every state lists such documentation error or misstatement as a felony, with heavy fines and imprisonment ranging from 1-10 years. As recently as this week, a New York state physician and mother is facing years in jail for submitting what authorities claim to be an inaccurate vaccine record for her child to attend the local public school.[3]
AAP calls for swift enforcement of this kind—demanding that "departments of health and education enforce these [vaccination] laws and regulations on a uniform [...] basis". In other words, immediate expulsions for children. In their final recommendation, AAP calls for state health authorities to shame schools and daycare centers that don't immediately do so, by sharing "safety" information on immunization rates at those schools to determine whether those schools have "risks of outbreaks" of disease. Unfortunately, these draconian priorities, just months later, are now being implemented in pending legislation in Michigan.
This is not the only way that AAP is comfortable piling on the pressure on parents, so that medical decisions are in fact made under duress rather than freely—a fact that negates informed consent. It urges a diversity of methods to reduce exemptions. In their policy, AAP celebrates that some states like Michigan are considering legislation to force parents to sign affidavits to imply legal liability for their decisions on behalf of their children, or that force parents to undergo required "education" sessions to reduce exemptions. With bills like these on the horizon, in only a few short years, many pediatricians will have shifted from being providers of care, to enforcers of medical directives.
In one of the more bizarre statements in the policy note, the authors celebrate that "[u]nlike an outright vaccine mandate, this policy permits parents some leeway in exercising their authority over health decisions for their children", presumably by choosing to not have access to school. The draconian vaccine mandates under Covid-19, unheard of before 2021, somehow become an "it-could-be-worse" justification for a slightly less forceful and coercive AAP policy.
Medical Exemptions Are Difficult to Find; AAP Wants to Make it More Challenging
Making matters worse, if this policy were enacted, the chance of securing this last AAP-approved medical exemption is slim, and if granted, most would be temporary and require repeated, combative, and expensive visits to the pediatrician. AAP, in their third recommendation, states that members should brush up on how to only approve "bona fide" conditions for exemption, and only temporarily. Regulations like this are already in place in California, where all medical exemptions are approved by the leadership in the state health bureaucracy, these exemptions must be renewed at frequent intervals, and can only apply to a single vaccine[4].
There is also a financial incentive for practitioners. Many pediatricians stand to benefit financially from hitting vaccination quotas among their patients, with much of their business reimbursement amounts linked to their overall vaccination rates. Such incentives vary by insurance plan and by state, with some physicians even being provided a bonus for spending time arguing for vaccination. For example, in North Carolina, the state created a new billing code just for "counseling" people for up to 15 minutes to take certain injections. There is even an ICD code in the universal medical records system for classifying vaccine refusal as if refusing a medicine is itself a disorder or disease.
AAP itself notes that many medical exemptions are temporary, noting approvingly that "nearly another half of [...] states requir[e] annual or more frequent health care provider re-certification for the medical exemptions". For any parent who thinks persistent eczema, asthma, rashes, fevers, or even seizures after vaccination will allow them to easily continue with exemptions at their school, AAP recommendations should signal otherwise.
As the policy menacingly states, "[a]n important feature of parental authority is that it is constrained in a variety of ways". This policy clearly aims to add new authoritarian constraints to whittle down options available to concerned parents to a single one: the act of begging a pediatrician (possibly a member of AAP) to write a note to allow their child to go to school.
Logical Missteps, Unsupported Assertions, and Misrepresentation of Citations
The ethical and methodological bar for AAP recommendations is self-admittedly quite low. Even in its own in-house publication, Pediatrics, an opaque and conflicted relationship with industry was highlighted among professional medical associations like AAP. In another article in Pediatrics, it was admitted that only 10.6% of recommendations made by AAP are based on "high-quality" evidence.
In this policy note, AAP has failed again to apply high standards. The authors attempt to set the table for their draconian policy recommendation—that only with a doctor's note and lengthy administrative processes, may a parent choose not to have their child take a liability-free product from a pharmaceutical company to attend school. To do this, AAP first tries to establish that vaccines result in population level benefit for children, and that attendance is improved by vaccination requirements. they fail miserably on this count. Regardless, HFDF strongly states that even if they had produced compelling evidence, all medicine should be individualized and based on the full consent of the patient or their parent/guardian.
AAP claims that "Public health data show setting and enforcing these conditions for child care and/or school entry result in increased community immunization rates and decreased incidence of VPDs ". The three studies linked to this claim are all public records reviews, and none of the three are designed to include an analysis of incidence of their target diseases (chicken pox and/or Hepatitis A), but rather only coverage of vaccination. On top of this lack of useful data, AAP ignores that the CDC itself has published far more rigorous research showing that in heavily-vaccinated schools, "varicella in vaccinated persons was contagious and that 99% varicella vaccination coverage was not sufficient to prevent the outbreak", as is the case with other "VPDs".
The errors, omissions, and misstatements continue throughout the document. Bizarrely, AAP references a study to show that school attendance is important for health, while implying that vaccination somehow improves school attendance (the study itself does not even mention routine vaccination but rather briefly mentions on-site flu shot clinics, which are not part of the required CDC schedule). On top of this, if the administrators are kicking out kids for not being fully vaccinated as AAP demands, this obviously works against a goal of high attendance in school. This self-defeating and disingenuous citation fails to support this contradictory argument, and speaks poorly for the editorial standards at AAP. The thrust of this section of the statement is that hundreds of thousands of children, or even millions, should be disallowed from attending school given their current vaccination status, and at the same time, that children missing school is socially dangerous, and bad for their overall health.
Generously, AAP "acknowledges the challenges that such a policy can create for some families" as they come into compliance. "Challenges", if their recommendations are followed, that include expulsion for students, and potential jail time for parents sharing out of date, or incorrect vaccination records.
Rather than grapple with the obviously immoral consequences of its own statement, AAP tries to go on the offensive. AAP engages in a manipulative exercise when it posits that "nonmedical exemptions threaten the safety of the entire school community and shift the burden of protecting their children to the parents of children who are medically fragile, immuno-compromised, or unable to receive immunizations for medical reasons."
Sadly, immuno-compromised children are indeed at great risk from everyday infections and even routine activities, depending on their condition, and not just as school. But how exactly can AAP claim that vaccination is an airtight prevention system given the copious data available on the topic of breakthrough infections? When for example, the CDC admits that coverage is largely immaterial unless there is constant boosting, and, as shown above, that 99% vaccination coverage doesn't stop chickenpox outbreaks among both unvaccinated and vaccinated, it is absurd to claim that any particular student can "threaten" the school through their own medical choice. By that logic, the unvaccinated immuno-compromised children are "threatening" the entire school by even being there, as potential vectors of disease. But of course, seeing children as primarily a threat to each other's health is absurd.
This disturbing view from a pediatric association—that children are merely various levels of threats to each other—is a damning indictment of the medical profession and AAP in particular. The organization uses emotion rather than data in this case. The AAP never weighs the chances that that single child will have a side effect from an unwanted immunization, against the chances that an immuno-compromised child will catch, and then have a serious complication from, an allegedly "vaccine-preventable" disease specifically due to that first child's refusal. This extraordinary set of authoritarian recommendations should at least be backed up by some semblance of rigorous logic and evidence, but they make no such attempt, knowing that coercion and intimidation are the most important factors at play.
With this new policy guidance, it is now clearer than ever what groups AAP represents, and that it finds personal autonomy and medical choice to be a hindrance to be managed away, rather than a bedrock of a free society. Despite its status as a charity, AAP explicitly and openly advocates for policies that benefit its primary donors—drug companies that sell vaccine, pediatricians' private practices, and federal bureaucracies.
Health Freedom Defense Fund objects to the authoritarian and unscientific recommendations by AAP and embraces the wisdom of individuals, parents, and families in determining the best course forward for their health. As an organization, AAP can continue to write and recommend what it wants, but as a non-profit it should declare its industry ties transparently, and it should operate without American taxpayer funds.
[1] https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20Financial%20Statements_FY25_Final.pdf (page 28)
[2] https://healthfreedomdefense.org/parents-have-turned-against-coercive-vaccination/
[3] https://www.syracuse.com/health/2025/12/manlius-pediatrician-who-caters-to-vaccine-skeptics-facing-felony-over-her-kids-vaccine-records.html
[4] https://cair-me.cdph.ca.gov/home
