In February 2011, I was hospitalized with meningitis. It was scary and painful and it left me with lasting heart damage — a pericardial effusion, specifically, which means there’s a sac of fluid around my heart.

Apparently when you develop a dangerous infection, your body deploys fluid to surround and protect your organs. (What a design!) In some cases, like mine, the fluid fails to absorb back into your system and you’re left with an effusion.

It’s a minor nuisance, all things considered. An internal scar that reminds me to be gentle with my beat-up heart.

My children were 5 years old and 18 months old when I was hospitalized. The whole ordeal was humbling and perspective-giving, and leaves me feeling a lot of things. The main thing is grateful.

Grateful for the doctors who saved my life in 2011. Grateful for the science that guided their knowledge. Grateful for the compassion that guided their care.

Grateful for the heart specialists who monitored me closely for the ensuing years. Grateful for their help returning to normal life, including running — slowly, at first, and now full steam ahead. (Going for my second marathon this fall!)

And grateful, above all, that my kids are protected against the disease by a vaccine the Centers for Disease Control first started recommending for adolescents in 2005 — the year my daughter was born. Since then, the incidence of meningococcal disease in adolescents has decreased by more than 90%, according to CDC data.

Now, under a dramatic overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule, the CDC will no longer recommend universal vaccination against meningitis — nor against rotavirus, hepatitis A or influenza.

The changes take effect immediately.

“At a time when parents, pediatricians and the public are looking for clear guidance and accurate information, this ill-considered decision will sow further chaos and confusion and erode confidence in immunizations,” American Academy of Pediatrics President Andrew Racine said in a statement. “This is no way to make our country healthier.”

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana who leads the Senate’s health policy committee, had this to say on X:

“As a doctor who treated patients for decades, my top priority is protecting children and families. Multiple children have died or were hospitalized from measles, and South Carolina continues to face a growing outbreak. Two children have died in my state from whooping cough. All of this was preventable with safe and effective vaccines.” (Paradoxically, Cassidy voted to confirm the appointment of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine overhaul’s architect.)

“The vaccine schedule IS NOT A MANDATE,” Cassidy continued. “It’s a recommendation giving parents the power. Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker.”

The words “no scientific input” should send a chill down our spines.

“One CDC scientist who works on vaccines said career staff were ‘blindsided’ by Monday’s announcement of a revised schedule,” the Washington Post reported. “Another CDC scientist who works on vaccines said ‘none of us had any idea this was happening yesterday, and only learned when we heard people had been invited’ to an HHS briefing for reporters to explain the new vaccine policy.

“The new vaccine recommendations also came without consulting the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices,” the Post continued. “That panel of medical professionals and experts outside the government is supposed to evaluate vaccine safety and effectiveness data to inform recommendations. It typically holds days-long public meetings and, in coordination with CDC staff, conducts extensive reviews of benefits and risks before voting to change a recommendation for a vaccine already on the schedule.”

America has a complicated relationship with expertise. A life devoted to acquiring knowledge isn’t celebrated the way a life devoted to acquiring, say, wealth or followers or Super Bowl rings is. To specialize in a field of study is to invite a fair bit of skepticism and scorn.

Now, I fear that skepticism and scorn has been elevated to the upper echelons of power. To the seats at the tables where so many decisions are made — decisions that dominate our days and dictate our health and determine our fates.

Now, I fear we’re witnessing the unraveling of a pretty key component of the American Dream — the part where you give your children a better life than the one you had.

What a waste that would be. What a squandered opportunity. What a slap in the face to the folks who’ve studied, who’ve researched, who’ve invented, who’ve saved lives, who’ve fought for their lives, who’ve lost their lives, who’ve devoted their lives to keeping that last group as small as possible.

We know better than this. We can do better than this.

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