Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has dropped the requirement that health care providers report the vaccination status of patients.
In a letter to state health officials, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) wrote, “CMS is removing the following four measures related to pediatric and prenatal immunization status from the 2026 Child and Adult Core Sets,” going on to list childhood immunization status, immunizations for adolescents, and prenatal immunization statuses for those under 21 and for those over the age of 21.
“In 2026 and beyond, CMS will explore options to facilitate the development of new vaccine measures that capture information about whether parents and families were informed about vaccine choices, vaccine safety and side effects, and alternative vaccine schedules,” the letter read. “CMS plans to engage with stakeholders, including states, quality measure stewards, immunization registry managers, providers, and electronic health record vendors to learn how new measures could capture person and family preferences related to vaccines.” The agency will also assess how religious exemptions for vaccines “can be accounted for in the data and the subsequent measures.”
Kennedy discussed the new guidelines on social media, declaring, “Government bureaucracies should never coerce doctors or families into accepting vaccines or penalize physicians for respecting patient choice. That practice ends now.”
“Under the Trump administration, HHS will protect informed consent, respect religious liberty, and uphold medical freedom,” he added.
Kennedy’s leadership has also reinforced religious exemptions for childhood vaccine mandates. “By specifically mandating that a state’s plan for administering Medicaid must respect state laws regarding religious exemptions, Congress recognized the importance of Americans’ religious convictions regarding vaccines and laws protecting such,” the September letter said. [Vaccines for Children Program] providers are responsible for following state laws ‘relating to’ religious and other exemptions to vaccination laws. Express religious exemptions contained in compulsory vaccination statutes are examples of such laws; so, too, are state statutes that mirror the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”
