A critical care physician exposes how the current US administration's policies are systematically dismantling protections and support for children, from vital vaccinations at birth to food security and education, arguing these changes are intentionally designed to harm the most vulnerable.
A veteran physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine, Robert B. Shpiner, argues that the current US administration is methodically harming children through a series of policy changes. While presented with rationales like fiscal discipline or local control, these changes, when viewed chronologically from birth, reveal a deliberate sequence of subtractions. He highlights the narrowing of routine childhood immunization schedules, including the removal of the hepatitis B birth dose, and a near doubling of vitamin K shot refusals, warning of a return of preventable diseases. The article details proposed cuts to WIC's fruit-and-vegetable benefits and freezes to Head Start, impacting preschoolers. It notes a significant drop in children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, alongside the largest reduction in food stamps in 60 years and the cancellation of a school cafeteria produce program. Shpiner also criticizes the shifting of oversight for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Office for Civil Rights, seeing it as a move to abolish the Department of Education rather than aid children. Crucially, the author points out that the administration is simultaneously 'switching off the instruments that would register the harm,' such as ceasing federal reporting on Medicaid immunization rates, ensuring that the negative impacts go unmeasured and unheard. He concludes that society is 'looking away again,' and this time, the harm to children is 'by design,' systematically retracting the promises made to newborns.
