AMNA NAWAZ: The American Academy of Pediatrics released new COVID-19 vaccination guidelines.

And for the first time, they diverged significantly from the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As Stephanie Sy reports, the changes leave parents with competing guidance as we head into the fall.

STEPHANIE SY: Amna, in May, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the CDC would no longer be recommending the COVID shot for healthy children.

But, yesterday, the AAP issued contrary guidance, saying all children under the age of 2 should receive a COVID shot to protect from severe illness.

It also called on insurers to continue covering the shots for that age group.

For context, we're joined now by Dr. Paul Offit, pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Offit, thank you for joining the program.

So this new AAP recommendation is based on the conclusion that children under 23 months old are at the highest risk of severe COVID.

But isn't it still relatively rare among children?

Do the numbers justify, you think, vaccinating all children under 2?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: So there was a presentation made by Fiona Havers of the CDC in April of this year looking at what has been the impact of COVID on children in the previous year.

And what she found was that thousands of children were hospitalized.

Of those who were hospitalized, about one in five were admitted to the intensive care unit.

Virtually all were unvaccinated.

Half were previously healthy, and 152 children died.

Most were less than 4 years of age.

So I think the impact of this virus in that age group still warrants getting a vaccine if you have never had one.

STEPHANIE SY: The CDC, as you know, under Secretary Kennedy, who is an overall vaccine skeptic, has reached a totally different conclusion than the AAP.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary: Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children.

DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA, NIH Director: That ends today.

It's common sense, and it's good science.

DR. MARTY MAKARY, FDA Commissioner: There's no evidence healthy kids need it today, and most countries have stopped recommending it for children.

STEPHANIE SY: The health secretary has been accused by many, including you in the past, of spreading misinformation.

But the AAP is also coming under scrutiny.

Kennedy and others accused the organization of getting funding from big pharma.

Who are Americans supposed to trust?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Trust the American Academy of Pediatrics, because it's the American Academy of Pediatrics that's following the science.

RFK Jr. doesn't have those data.

Because he doesn't have data, what he does is, he chooses to lean on conspiracy theories, because that's what he always does.

He believes everybody is in the pocket of big pharma, that whether it's journals, medical journals, or whether it's doctors or scientists, or health care agencies or public health officials, everybody is in the pocket of industry except him.

Who should you trust?

You should trust the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I think what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the CDC and has done to the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC, has been tragic.

And, as a consequence, most medical and scientific institutions now don't trust the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices anymore, and they certainly don't trust Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is a 20-year anti-vaccine activist, science denialist, and conspiracy theorist.

STEPHANIE SY: The AAP president, upon announcing these guidelines, said she wanted to provide clear and confident guidance on this.

It's pretty black and white, again, recommendation for all children under 2 to get the COVID vaccine.

Do you think that sort of lack of nuance among health authorities can be problematic?

Certainly, during the height of the pandemic, that seemed to backfire, I mean, given the landscape of some mistrust, even of scientific expertise.

DR. PAUL OFFIT: I think that what we found is that the virus still circulates.

SARS-CoV-2 virus still circulates.

It's going to be circulating for years, if not decades, if not centuries.

You know that children by 6 months of age will be fully susceptible to this virus.

You know that, over the past year, thousands of children were hospitalized and more than 150 died.

I don't think this is an example where we need nuance.

This is an example where we need a clear, firm recommendation.

And I think what the American Academy of Pediatrics has done has given us that recommendation, and we should follow it.

STEPHANIE SY: You're going to have doctors in the trenches who I suspect are going to be having conversations with a lot of confused parents.

You may have schools wondering whether the vaccine should be mandated.

What else do you expect the fallout of these divergent guidelines to be?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: I think it is confusing.

I think on the one hand you have the CDC saying regarding children getting a vaccine that it's shared clinical decision-making.

Then you have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. standing up in a one-minute video on X saying that he no longer recommends this vaccine for healthy young children.

Then you have the American Academy of Pediatrics saying that -- in clear terms, that children less than 2 years of age who have never been vaccinated should be vaccinated uniformly because we know that thousands of children are getting hospitalized, that most are less than 4, that one in five are admitted to the ICU, that most were unvaccinated and half are previously healthy.

So, of course, healthy young children benefit from this vaccine.

STEPHANIE SY: That is Dr. Paul Offit, pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, joining us.

Thank you.

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Thank you.