Amid the widening schism between state and federal health policy, Connecticut officials are considering codifying long-standing childhood vaccination recommendations, while pediatricians are enforcing them in their own way.

The U.S. is giving $1.6 million to researchers to study how the hepatitis B vaccine affects newborns in Guinea-Bissau. Local officials say the trial is suspended. U.S. officials say that's inaccurate.

After the Trump administration announced sweeping changes to the US childhood vaccine schedule this week, parents and pediatricians are trying to make sense of what’s driving the change and how it will affect families.

And what this implies is rather striking, and rarely discussed by those outside of public health: that among their many purposes and benefits, vaccines have served now for decades as a kind of substitute health safety net in America.

As influenza spreads through towns and cities in the DMV and beyond, so is vaccine hesitancy. Respiratory illness activity in D.C. is high, and in Maryland and Virginia, it is very high, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The overhaul of the federal vaccine schedule sent shockwaves through American health care. Now battles over vaccine laws are moving to statehouses across the country.

The Trump administration has made its largest imprint on the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule to date. Among the changes, the government schedule demotes shots once universally recommended into a designation called “shared clinical decision making.”

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act, which went into effect July 1, prevents governments, businesses, schools and colleges in the Gem State from requiring vaccines, face masks and other medical interventions. That includes preventing children from attending both public and private Idaho schools or daycare centers due to their vaccination status.