Last spring, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped the recommendation that all kids routinely get COVID shots. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week did the same thing for six other childhood immunizations, including the annual flu shot.

Instead, the CDC now says parents should talk to a health care provider about whether the shot is really necessary — what’s called “shared clinical decision-making.”

“The possibility of doing mass vaccination again in that way — I don’t see how that could be possible because the demands of shared decision-making require individual conversations with each family about each child,” says O’Shea, who runs Birmingham Pediatrics + Wellness Center and Campground Pediatrics + Wellness Center outside Detroit. She also serves as a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.