The Schedule
Blame the CDC, they built it.
Fame and Infamy often earns things the title prefix ‘THE’.
A few examples that come to mind include: The White House, The Death Star, The Great War, The Man, The Big Game.
And then, there’s The Schedule.
More precisely, The Child and Adolescent Recommended Immunization Schedule. Most of the time, when people in the US speak of The Schedule, they are pointing at the vaccine schedule for children and teens, but the CDC also issues a schedule for adults and makes recommendations for vaccination during pregnancy and for travel abroad.
Before going any further, it’s worth unpacking the way the schedule is presented to the public. Note the red warning highlight box at the top of the page, and the exclamation point graphic.
The graphic quality [red—warning] and phrasing of ‘now available’ and ‘effective immediately’ and ‘made official’ combine to be more than subtly manipulative. The connotations are urgency and officialdom, and imply that these are rules that must be followed. Read: compliance is not a choice, dear public.
What is obfuscated here is the truth of the matter: the CDC does not have the authority to mandate an immunization schedule. That’s why the legal title of the document reads ‘Recommended Immunization Schedule’. The CDC is empowered to recommend, not to mandate or enforce. In the US, that power currently rests with states.
If you are curious, requirements by state can be reviewed here.
When the COVID injectable products1 were added to The Schedule, many came to join those that (for quite some time) have regarded The Schedule with caution, skepticism, or outright disdain. The Schedule is not straightforward, and most casual inquirers tend to rely on others to do their research for them, which is how soundbites come to dominate public understanding.
72 Vaccines
You’ve probably heard the number, often repeated, especially in recent years.
72 vaccines.
It’s a communication strategy that generally does what it is intended to do: it shocks those that are willing to listen.
The latest version of The Schedule for 2024 blows well past that number, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
There is a problem with parroting this ‘vaccine-count’ number. In the age of so-called fact-checking, a disparaging case can be constructed arguing that the number 72 isn’t accurate. It easily becomes one of those things that Snopes (or their ilk) slaps a FALSE stamp on, causing people to draw a knee-jerk conclusion and stop thinking. Further, if Jane or Joe Public naively goes to the CDC website and tries to digest The Schedule and do some basic addition, they soon discover that the math isn’t clear cut. If they aren’t critical or independent thinkers, they might even decide they were misled, even if unintentionally.
Fact-Checkers
As for fact-checking, yeah, that happened. The top hit on a Google search for “72 vaccines for children” returns a piece at leadstories.com. Note that Lead Stories ‘fact-checker,’ Ed Payne, was once a digital content writer for CNN and an editor/writer at WebMD (those credentials are supposed to impress you). The goal of his piece aside, Payne actually raises a decent point: why include the doses taken by pregnant mothers in the tally? Now, there is a good rationale for considering the impact of doses taken during pregnancy and their potential effects on the unborn child, but it is undeniably a confounder for any claim on the actual number of vaccines given to children in the US.
Point taken, accuracy does matter.
It’s worth noting here that Mr. Payne fails to tell the reader what an accurate number ought to be or to address the deeper and valid concerns over the ever-expanding tally of recommended shots on The Schedule. Another point worth making here: certain vaccines are given to pregnant mothers precisely because the intent is to have an effect on the infant. The notion that vaccines do not at all affect the unborn in utero clearly flies in the face of this practice.
Dr. Vincent Ianelli, a Texas pediatrician who writes for Vaxopedia.org offers another critical perspective. In his piece, he points out that the numbers don’t add up to 72, and uses this as a springboard to support a conclusion that is baseless and distorts the reality of what is known.
Ianelli wields a very broad brush, under the cover of his critique of ‘72 vaccines’, distorting the very complicated issue of disease causation and correlation with vaccines. It’s also worth observing that this medical doctor doesn’t apparently know the difference between a toxin and a toxicant, or doesn’t care to make the distinction.2 Further, he is very wrong about the required vaccine uptake in the US vs other countries (more on that coming in another post).
But let’s set that aside for now.
What does one really expect from fact-checkers anyway?
Whatever Payne or Ianelli have chosen to highlight or ignore on this, a direct review of the The Schedule reveals that The Schedule is a mess.
Blame the CDC, they built it.
A Minimum and a Maximum
Most people expect schedules to be clean and straightforward. We all know these things: class schedules, meeting schedules, work schedules, a schedule of tasks, etc. Schedules are created to make things simple, easily digested, memorable, and followed.
But to navigate the CDC’s Schedule, you actually need to read pages of notes with cross-referencing, which qualify the recommended doses based on a host of criteria. It’s far from straightforward.
And, if one tries to do the arithmetic, what you end up with is not one total, the same for all children. It makes generalization tricky. Several factors come into play: what age you start vaccination, which product(s) are taken, the health status of the child, and more. Even where you live can have an effect, as is the case with the Dengue vaccine.
In the end analysis, incorporating all of the embedded complexity and caveats, the recommendations contained in The Schedule actually end up defining a range: a minimum number of shots and a maximum number of shots.
The 2023 Schedule Tally
This is the Information Sheet built for 2023.
So, 67 maximum doses isn’t 72, but it’s damn close, and not any less egregious.
When the above infosheet was released in 2023, a few reviewers commented, asking “Why are there only 16 shots shown—aren’t there 17 on the schedule?”
Well, that’s an example of the devil residing in the details. A careful examination of The Schedule for 2023 reveals:
17 vaccines are listed, but 2 products target pneumococcal disease, and one is used only in special situations; so there are really 16 vaccines + an alternate
PCV13: the routine schedule emphasizes pneumococcal conjugate PCV13
PPSV23: pneumococcal polysacharide PPSV23 is used only in special (unusual) situations
PCV and PPSV are not used on top of each other, but situationally interchanged
Regardless of whether PCV13 or PPSV23 is taken, the total shots for pneumococcal disease appears to be 1 at minimum, 4 at maximum
Here's a relevant link on the pneumococcal shots: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7137a3.htm
Not many people are going to dig this deep, but the point remains, The Schedule isn’t straightforward. There is no single number, and any single number drilled into the public consciousness—without accurate framing—can be counter-productive.
Packaging a mess into a soundbite can lead to trouble.
The 2024 Schedule
The Schedule is revised annually. When it was updated in January for 2024, Aaron Siri was all over it, and rightly so.
People might be tempted to repeat the number 90 in place of 72, but again, the devil is in the details.
Make no mistake, none of this is intended to say The Schedule isn’t shocking and egregious. It absolutely is.
Since 1962, the maximum number of shots recommended for children has grown by more than 1600%.
All the while, scientific study on efficacy and safety continue to be woefully inadequate.
This Information Sheet, updated for 2024, speaks for itself.
The total maximum pediatric dose exposure for 2024, following recommendations is: 82 Shots.
In addition, as many as 15 shots can be given to pregnant mothers.
Forgive the language here, but that’s a shit-ton.
In all likelihood, that amounts to 1600% more shots than a child probably had in 1962.
Let that sink in.
Note: If readers observe any inaccuracy with the above tally, please leave a comment. The goal here is accuracy. Revisions, if warranted, will be incorporated.
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The COVID injectable products are not ‘vaccines,’ and in this author’s opinion, should not be referred to as such, even for the purpose of convenience or simplifying communication. Referring to these products as ‘vaccines’ is a distortion that reinforces the notion that these products confer immunity to a disease, which they do not.
Toxins specifically originate from organisms, as in the case of venom. Organisms can include bacteria, plants, animals, and fungi. Toxicants are poisonous substances that are generally environmental, whether natural or artificial, and include substances found in pesticides as well as common vaccine adjuvants, such as aluminum hydroxide.
Thank you for this great article and for raising awareness about vaccines. Non-profit Vaccine Choice Canada has been educating families about the risks of vaccines for more than 40 years. Our New parents guide, an excellent resource, is now available. https://uptoeveryone.com/collections/frontpage/products/new-parents-guide-to-understanding-vaccination
This is a wonderful tool to help convince parents not to harm their children. Thank you for sharing it. I suggest we print out several copies and tape them up everywhere.