HHS Cancels Grants To AAP Totaling $18-$20 Million After Organization Contradicts CDC Guidance

HHS has canceled $18-$20 million in contracts to the American Academy of Pediatrics under the guidance of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The announcement has received mixed reactions, including allegations that this is in response to criticisms the AAP has made against Secretary Kennedy’s leadership since he took the reins of the federal health agencies earlier this year. Andrew Nixon, HHS spokesman, said that the grants no longer align with the department’s mission or priorities.

ACIP voting member Robert Malone said the department had good reasons to cut the grant funding to the AAP and listed some of the previous recommendations the organization has made. AAP recommended and continues to recommend gender-affirming care for children, which includes medical interventions that have been halted in other countries like the UK after the Cass Report concluded there was “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

Malone also mentioned that the AAP recommended that children wear masks in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, “despite no evidence that mask use would prevent COVID-19 transmission. “These masks harm children’s development by delaying or impeding speech, language learning, and emotional growth, as facial cues are crucial to development,” Malone wrote.

Malone added that the AAP recommended that infants avoid peanuts until the age of three to prevent allergies, without any scientific evidence at the time, and that there has been a surge in peanut allergies as a result. The AAP also went against the new CDC recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines that align with peer countries like the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Australia, among others. The organization supports the continued vaccination of healthy children 6 months or older, even though severe outcomes from COVID-19 infection are rare for this age group. No countries suggest children as young as 6 months should get the COVID-19 vaccine unless they are deemed high risk, which made the United States an outlier in global health policy. The AAP continues to support a position that is not held by any federal public health agency across the world.

Lastly, Malone said the AAP has recommended GLP-1 drugs for children 12 years and older without long-term data on impacts to growth, puberty, and body composition. The HighWire has reported about the severe side effects associated with GLP-1 drugs, including stomach paralysis, blindness, suicidal ideation, other gastrointestinal issues, and chronic diarrhea. “The AAP continues to advocate various faddish trends that have caused real physical damage to our youth,” Malone wrote.

AAP partners with the top pharmaceutical companies and Secretary Kennedy has directly called out the organization for this conflict of interest. The organization has criticized the ACIP panel for removing the universal Hepatitis B vaccine birth-dose recommendation, which the CDC has now adopted. The organization has said it will continue recommending the universal dose despite the change in the CDC guidelines.

In August, Secretary Kennedy shared a screenshot of the top corporate donors to the AAP and said these four vaccine companies (Merck, Moderna, Pfizer, and Sanofi) make “virtually every vaccine on the CDC-recommended childhood vaccine schedule. “ Kennedy added, “AAP should follow the lead of HHS and disclose conflicts of interest, including its corporate entanglements and those of its journal—Pediatrics—so that Americans may ask whether the AAP’s recommendations reflect public health interest, or are, perhaps, just a pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of AAP’s Big Pharma benefactors.”

HealthyChildren.org is a website funded by the AAP and refers to Hepatitis B information without disclosing the original source. The website says the virus can remain on surfaces for up to seven days, including “personal items people use regularly and sometimes share.” The original source for this was documented in a report by the Vaccine Integrity Project co-authored by Rochelle Walensky and funded by Walmart heiress Christy Walton.

A 1981 letter to the editor published in the Lancet titled Survival of Hepatitis B Virus After Drying and Storage for One Week is the primary source of information. The research involved drying Hep B-infected blood samples, reconstituting them, and injecting them into chimpanzees after 7 days. The information shared by the AAP without the original source implies that casual transmission is possible. The CDC clarifies that despite HBV being present in saliva, it does not spread through saliva. “It is not spread through kissing or sharing utensils. It is also not spread through sneezing, coughing, hugging, breastfeeding, or food or water,” the website states.

The transmission via shared items is referenced by the CDC, specifically identifying razors and toothbrushes, but the CDC notes that this is “less common.” Other cultures that have had high rates of Hepatitis B are more likely to share items like razors and toothbrushes. Sharing toothbrushes and razors with infants is not a part of American culture. As the CDC explains, “Hepatitis B is primarily spread when blood, semen, or certain other body fluids – even in microscopic amounts – from a person infected with HBV enter the body of someone who is not infected.”

Others have criticized HHS for canceling AAP contracts. “Groups such as AAP translate evidence into clinical guidance, support frontline providers, and help ensure that public health recommendations reach children and families in real-world settings,” Greta Massetti told the Washington Post. “Abruptly canceling grants that support these partnerships risks weakening the infrastructure that connects science, practice, and prevention.”

Massetti worked at the CDC for 18 years and stopped working for the agency in August. Massetti was also questioned by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic regarding last-minute changes to pandemic guidelines for schools and the inclusion of last-minute revisions suggested by the American Federation of Teachers. She defended the inclusion of language that said employers should offer remote work options for staff who have “documented high-risk conditions.”