In a one-minute video, US Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr revoked the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s suggestion that wholesome youngsters and wholesome pregnant ladies be vaccinated for COVID-19, leaving some consultants involved and others not sure concerning the coverage’s particulars.
Kennedy was joined within the video, posted on Could 27 on X, by Meals and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and Nationwide Institutes of Well being Director Jay Bhattacharya.
Kennedy, who was tapped by President Donald Trump after a years-long embrace of vaccine conspiracy theories, didn’t make it clear whether or not he was referring to a suggestion for youngsters or pregnant ladies getting vaccinated for the primary time, for getting subsequent booster photographs, or each. Days after the announcement, HHS’s web site supplied no readability, saying, “COVID-19 vaccines can be found to everybody 6 months and older. Getting vaccinated is one of the simplest ways to assist shield folks from COVID-19.” A Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention webpage dated January 7 – earlier than Kennedy was secretary – supplied the same broad vaccine endorsement.
Some consultants say the low charges of great COVID-19 circumstances amongst youngsters justify tightening the federal vaccine suggestion. Others say that the transfer will make it tougher to get vaccinated and trigger preventable critical sicknesses.
Kennedy broke from norms by not ready for the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to vote on vaccine steering at a scheduled June assembly.
Recommending in opposition to vaccination for sure teams might make it tougher for most youngsters and pregnant ladies to get the shot, if insurers resolve to not cowl COVID-19 photographs for these teams. Immunization charges are already low, with 13 p.c of kids and 14.4 p.c of pregnant ladies updated with the 2024-25 version of the COVID-19 vaccine, the CDC present in late April.
We fact-checked the three federal well being officers’ feedback with well being consultants.
Kennedy stated youngster vaccine boosters lacked medical knowledge
Kennedy stated, “Final 12 months, the Biden administration urged wholesome youngsters to get one more COVID shot, regardless of the dearth of any medical knowledge to assist the repeat booster technique in youngsters.”
Lately, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices – a bunch of out of doors consultants that advises the CDC on who needs to be vaccinated and the way typically – has beneficial annual boosters for wholesome youngsters who’ve already obtained COVID-19 vaccines.
The committee made this suggestion with out additionally recommending that each annual iteration of the vaccine endure new rounds of medical trials earlier than getting used, stated Dr William Schaffner, professor of preventive drugs on the Vanderbilt College Medical Heart. (The vaccine had been permitted by the FDA for security and efficacy early within the pandemic.) The panel concluded that the coronavirus vaccine operated in the identical method because the annual flu vaccine, which has not required repeated medical trials, stated Schaffner, a former committee member and present adviser.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Household Physicians additionally beneficial COVID-19 vaccinations for youngsters and didn’t urge new medical trials.
Children typically don’t want the vaccination, FDA chief stated
Makary stated, “There’s no proof wholesome youngsters want” the vaccine.
That is disputed. Most youngsters won’t face critical sickness from COVID-19, however a small fraction will. Consultants draw totally different traces when deciding how widespread the vaccination programme must be, given this scale of danger.
Through the 2024-25 COVID-19 season, youngsters and adolescents age 17 and youthful comprised about 4 p.c of COVID-19-associated hospitalisations. The comparatively small variety of critical circumstances amongst youngsters has pushed the idea amongst some scientists that the common vaccination suggestion is just too broad.
Nevertheless, amongst all youngsters, charges of COVID-19-associated hospitalisations had been highest amongst infants lower than six months previous.
“With 4 million new youngsters born yearly with no publicity to COVID, younger youngsters have charges of illness just like the illness charges in folks older than 65,” Schaffner stated, citing a September 2024 article on the CDC’s web site.
COVID-19 was among the many prime 10 causes of loss of life in youngsters in the course of the worst of the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, stated Tara C Smith, a Kent State College epidemiologist. “Although we could now not be at that stage … we vaccinate for influenza, so why not proceed to take action for COVID?”
Some medical doctors are involved concerning the lingering syndrome referred to as lengthy COVID, about which much less is understood, particularly amongst youngsters.
The surface advisory committees and the medical academies discovered this degree of great illness to be adequate to advocate continued annual vaccinations.
Makary stated this coverage is just like these in different nations
Makary was correct when he stated that “most nations have stopped recommending” routine COVID-19 vaccination for youngsters.
“Many nations will solely provide the COVID vaccine to youngsters if they’ve underlying well being circumstances or are immunocompromised,” stated Brooke Nichols, a Boston College affiliate professor of world well being.
Makary co-wrote a Could 20 article that included an inventory of booster suggestions in Canada, Europe and Australia. It stated in most nations, the advice was to vaccinate older folks or these at excessive danger.
Most nations have taken this course, Schaffner stated, as a result of “by now, 95 p.c of us have had expertise with COVID, both via the vaccine or via sickness or each. And second, the present variants are considered a lot milder than a number of the earlier variants.”
The World Well being Group in 2024 beneficial the COVID-19 vaccine for youngsters with well being dangers who had by no means been vaccinated. For kids and adolescents who had beforehand been vaccinated, it didn’t routinely advocate revaccination.
The European Medicines Company beneficial the BioNtech Pfizer vaccine for youngsters over the age of 5 years and stated using the vaccine for youngsters is efficient and secure. Euronews reported that the company issued its suggestion in November 2021 and later beneficial the Moderna vaccine for youngsters ages 12 to 17.
Within the United Kingdom, “solely older folks or these with particular illnesses or sicknesses making them inclined to extreme COVID had been beneficial to get boosters, and because of this, uptake in these teams was really increased than within the US,” the place outreach and promoting for the vaccinations centered on youngsters in addition to older folks, stated Babak Javid, an affiliate professor within the division of experimental drugs on the College of California-San Francisco.
The New York Instances discovered that in Europe “many nations don’t advocate the vaccines for wholesome youngsters below 5, however the photographs are permitted for everybody 6 months and older,” that means that they are often safely utilized by anybody who’s no less than six months previous.
Docs say the vaccine protects pregnant ladies
Consultants disagreed with Kennedy’s suggestion in opposition to vaccinating pregnant ladies, saying the vaccine protects pregnant ladies and their infants.
Steven J Fleischman, American Faculty of Obstetricians and Gynecologists president, stated, “It is extremely clear that COVID-19 an infection throughout being pregnant may be catastrophic and result in main incapacity, and it could trigger devastating penalties for households. The truth is, rising proof reveals simply how a lot vaccination throughout being pregnant protects the toddler after delivery, with the overwhelming majority of hospitalised infants lower than six months of age – those that will not be but eligible for vaccination – born to unvaccinated moms.”
After a vaccination, antibodies attain the fetus. The medical doctors’ group stated there isn’t any proof the vaccine creates opposed results for both mom or the fetus, though fever or ache on the injection website are potential.
The federal authorities in Could supplied conflicting details about the vaccine and being pregnant.
In Makary’s Could 20 article, he and his co-author included being pregnant on the CDC’s 2025 listing of underlying medical circumstances that improve the chance of extreme COVID-19.
“They actually contradicted themselves over the course of a few days,” stated Dr Peter Hotez, Texas Youngsters’s Hospital Heart for Vaccine Growth co-director. “It seems RFK Jr reversed his personal FDA’s resolution.”
Following the Could 27 video announcement, Makary instructed NBC that the choice about vaccination needs to be between a pregnant girl and her physician.
A 2024 overview of 67 research discovered that absolutely vaccinated pregnant ladies had a 61 p.c decrease chance of a COVID-19 an infection throughout being pregnant.
What’s subsequent?
In its June assembly, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices would possibly transfer in the direction of much less sweeping suggestions for vaccinating youngsters, nearer to those who Kennedy enacted.
“In case you listened to the discussions in the newest earlier assembly, they very a lot appeared to be shifting in a extra focused strategy,” Schaffner stated.
The query of pregnant ladies could also be one the place the advisory committees could advocate extra flexibility with vaccine utilization than what Kennedy’s video assertion appears to recommend, Schaffner stated.
Different areas the place the panels might again better flexibility could possibly be for in any other case wholesome individuals who function caregivers or who stay with extra weak people who find themselves superior in age or are immunocompromised.
