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 advice that wholesome kids and wholesome pregnant ladies be vaccinated for COVID-19, leaving some consultants involved and others uncertain in regards to the coverage’s particulars.
Kennedy was joined within the video, posted on Might 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 advice for youngsters or pregnant ladies getting vaccinated for the primary time, for getting subsequent booster pictures, 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 defend folks from COVID-19.” A Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention webpage dated January 7 – earlier than Kennedy was secretary – supplied an analogous broad vaccine endorsement.
Some consultants say the low charges of great COVID-19 instances amongst kids justify tightening the federal vaccine advice. 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 steerage at a scheduled June assembly.
Recommending towards vaccination for sure teams may make it tougher for most youngsters and pregnant ladies to get the shot, if insurers determine to not cowl COVID-19 pictures for these teams. Immunization charges are already low, with 13 % of kids and 14.4 % 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 baby vaccine boosters lacked scientific information
Kennedy stated, “Final yr, the Biden administration urged wholesome kids to get one more COVID shot, regardless of the dearth of any scientific information to assist the repeat booster technique in kids.”
In recent times, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices – a bunch of out of doors consultants that advises the CDC on who must be vaccinated and the way usually – has advisable annual boosters for wholesome kids who’ve already acquired COVID-19 vaccines.
The committee made this advice with out additionally recommending that each annual iteration of the vaccine endure new rounds of scientific trials earlier than getting used, stated Dr William Schaffner, professor of preventive drugs on the Vanderbilt College Medical Middle. (The vaccine had been authorized by the FDA for security and efficacy early within the pandemic.) The panel concluded that the coronavirus vaccine operated in the identical manner because the annual flu vaccine, which has not required repeated scientific trials, stated Schaffner, a former committee member and present adviser.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Household Physicians additionally advisable COVID-19 vaccinations for youngsters and didn’t urge new scientific trials.
Children usually don’t want the vaccination, FDA chief stated
Makary stated, “There’s no proof wholesome children want” the vaccine.
That is disputed. Most youngsters is not going to face critical sickness from COVID-19, however a small fraction will. Consultants draw completely different traces when deciding how widespread the vaccination programme must be, given this scale of danger.
In the course of the 2024-25 COVID-19 season, kids and adolescents age 17 and youthful comprised about 4 % of COVID-19-associated hospitalisations. The comparatively small variety of critical instances amongst kids has pushed the assumption amongst some scientists that the common vaccination advice is just too broad.
Nonetheless, amongst all kids, charges of COVID-19-associated hospitalisations had been highest amongst infants lower than six months previous.
“With 4 million new kids born yearly with no publicity to COVID, younger kids have charges of illness much 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 kids in the course of the worst of the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, stated Tara C Smith, a Kent State College epidemiologist. “Although we might now not be at that stage … we vaccinate for influenza, so why not proceed to take action for COVID?”
Some medical doctors are involved in regards to the lingering syndrome often known as lengthy COVID, about which much less is understood, particularly amongst kids.
The surface advisory committees and the medical academies discovered this degree of great illness to be ample to suggest continued annual vaccinations.
Makary stated this coverage is much 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 kids 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 Might 20 article that included a listing 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 % of us have had expertise with COVID, both by the vaccine or by sickness or each. And second, the present variants are considered a lot milder than a few of the earlier variants.”
The World Well being Group in 2024 advisable 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 suggest revaccination.
The European Medicines Company advisable the BioNtech Pfizer vaccine for youngsters over the age of 5 years and stated the usage of the vaccine for youngsters is efficient and secure. Euronews reported that the company issued its advice in November 2021 and later advisable the Moderna vaccine for youngsters ages 12 to 17.
Within the United Kingdom, “solely older folks or these with particular ailments or sicknesses making them vulnerable to extreme COVID had been advisable to get boosters, and because of this, uptake in these teams was really larger than within the US,” the place outreach and promoting for the vaccinations targeted on kids 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 suggest the vaccines for wholesome kids beneath 5, however the pictures are authorized for everybody 6 months and older,” that means that they are often safely utilized by anybody who’s no less than six months previous.
Medical doctors say the vaccine protects pregnant ladies
Consultants disagreed with Kennedy’s advice towards vaccinating pregnant ladies, saying the vaccine protects pregnant ladies and their infants.
Steven J Fleischman, American School of Obstetricians and Gynecologists president, stated, “It is extremely clear that COVID-19 an infection throughout being pregnant could be catastrophic and result in main incapacity, and it could possibly trigger devastating penalties for households. The truth is, rising proof reveals simply how a lot vaccination throughout being pregnant protects the toddler after start, 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 antagonistic results for both mom or the fetus, though fever or ache on the injection web site are doable.
The federal authorities in Might supplied conflicting details about the vaccine and being pregnant.
In Makary’s Might 20 article, he and his co-author included being pregnant on the CDC’s 2025 checklist of underlying medical circumstances that improve the danger of extreme COVID-19.
“They actually contradicted themselves over the course of a few days,” stated Dr Peter Hotez, Texas Kids’s Hospital Middle for Vaccine Growth co-director. “It seems RFK Jr reversed his personal FDA’s determination.”
Following the Might 27 video announcement, Makary instructed NBC that the choice about vaccination must be between a pregnant girl and her physician.
A 2024 assessment of 67 research discovered that totally vaccinated pregnant ladies had a 61 % decrease probability 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 kids, nearer to people who Kennedy enacted.
“For those who listened to the discussions in the newest earlier assembly, they very a lot gave the impression to be shifting in a extra focused strategy,” Schaffner stated.
The query of pregnant ladies could also be one the place the advisory committees might suggest extra flexibility with vaccine utilization than what Kennedy’s video assertion appears to counsel, Schaffner stated.
Different areas the place the panels may again higher flexibility could possibly be for in any other case wholesome individuals who function caregivers or who reside with extra susceptible people who find themselves superior in age or are immunocompromised.
