The chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the CDC, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, said that shots against polio and measles should be optional. His comments came in an interview with the podcast “Why Should I Trust You?” where Dr. Milhoan said, “As you look at polio, we need to not be afraid to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then. Our sanitation is different, our risk of disease is different and so that those all play into the evaluation of whether this is worthwhile of taking a risk for a vaccine or not.” During the interview, Dr. Milhoan called school vaccinations “authoritarian.” Dr.

Sean O’Leary, the chair of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in response, “He has no idea what he’s talking about. It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to do what we can to improve the health of children to see harm coming to children because of an ideological agenda not grounded in science.”