Doctors groups release vaccination guidelines ahead of respiratory illness season

Professional organizations representing pediatricians, family physicians, obstetricians, and other medical professionals jointly released guidelines Wednesday for who should get vaccines aimed at staving off influenza, Covid-19, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, this coming winter. The combined effort, undertaken in conjunction with the University of Minnesota’s Vaccine Integrity Project, has two goals: to help medical professionals guide their patients, and to help individuals plan to get the vaccinations that should help them either evade these ailments, or minimize their risks of severe illness if they do become infected. In previous times these organizations liaised with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to jointly issue such guidance. But that collaborative process has broken down following the dismantlement of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — an expert panel fired in June 2025 by longtime vaccine critic and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and its replacement largely with vaccine skeptics. A court challenge of that restructuring has left the ACIP and the recommendations the new version of it made in legal limbo. The professional groups have each reviewed the evidence for use of the seasonal respiratory vaccines, with the help of the Vaccine Integrity Project, which works under UMN’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, or CIDRAP. The renewed recommendations largely hew to previous ones from before the upheaval that has resulted in the second Trump administration. A small but notable change has been made by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which has extended the period during which pregnant people can be given an RSV vaccine to help protect their infants in their first RSV season. Previously the vaccine was recommended for pregnant people during the period from Sept. 1 of a given year to Jan. 31 of the following year, with the vaccination recommended for late in the pregnancy. But Christina Davidson, ACOG’s chief medical officer, said given that recent RSV seasons have started later and run longer than what was previously seen, the period during which pregnant people can get the RSV vaccine has been extended to March 1. The RSV shot for adults — pregnant or otherwise — remains, however, a once-only vaccine, because it is still not clear when or how often adults who have received the vaccine should be boosted. So pregnant people can get the vaccine in only a single pregnancy. In future pregnancies, their babies will be recommended to receive RSV monoclonal antibodies if they are 8 months of age or younger going into their first RSV season. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations, all babies 8 months and younger going into their first RSV season born to mothers who did not receive the RSV vaccine during pregnancy, or whose vaccination status is unclear, should receive monoclonal antibodies to protect against the virus, as should children going into their second RSV season who are at high risk of serious illness if they were to contract it. The various medical groups stressed the need for patients of their members to receive flu, Covid, and RSV vaccines if recommended, and to get them at the appropriate time. Sarah Nosal, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, noted, for instance, that because the effect of flu vaccination can wane over the course of the season, the best time to get an influenza shot would be in October, which is typically closer to the start of the season. Bruce Gellin, from the Vaccine Integrity Project’s board of advisers, stressed that despite the turmoil in vaccination policy under the current administration, doctors still need clear and simple guidance to offer their patients, and patients need that information to make their fall vaccination choices. “Americans should have access to the best available scientific evidence and recommendations from the physicians and medical experts who care for them, so they can make informed decisions about vaccination,” he said during a joint press conference the groups held on Tuesday. “Whatever happens to the federal vaccine policy process, we cannot lower that scientific standard.” Papers outlining the rationale for the various vaccination recommendations were published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and an interactive tool to help doctors and the public review the science behind the decisions will be posted on the Vaccine Integrity Project’s website.