In a one-minute video, US Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr revoked the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s suggestion that wholesome kids and wholesome pregnant girls be vaccinated for COVID-19, leaving some consultants involved and others uncertain 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 girls getting vaccinated for the primary time, for getting subsequent booster pictures, or each. Days after the announcement, HHS’s web site offered 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 individuals from COVID-19.” A Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention webpage dated January 7 – earlier than Kennedy was secretary – offered an identical broad vaccine endorsement.
Some consultants say the low charges of great COVID-19 instances amongst kids justify tightening the federal vaccine suggestion. Others say that the transfer will make it more durable to get vaccinated and trigger preventable severe 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 in opposition to vaccination for sure teams may make it more durable for most youngsters and pregnant girls to get the shot, if insurers resolve to not cowl COVID-19 pictures for these teams. Immunization charges are already low, with 13 % of youngsters and 14.4 % of pregnant girls 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 little one vaccine boosters lacked scientific information
Kennedy stated, “Final 12 months, the Biden administration urged wholesome kids to get one more COVID shot, regardless of the shortage 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 ought to be vaccinated and the way typically – has advisable annual boosters for wholesome kids who’ve already acquired COVID-19 vaccines.
The committee made this suggestion 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 medication 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 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 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 is not going to face severe sickness from COVID-19, however a small fraction will. Consultants draw completely different strains when deciding how widespread the vaccination programme must be, given this scale of threat.
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 severe instances amongst kids has pushed the idea amongst some scientists that the common vaccination suggestion is just too broad.
Nevertheless, amongst all kids, charges of COVID-19-associated hospitalisations have been highest amongst infants lower than six months outdated.
“With 4 million new kids born yearly with no publicity to COVID, younger kids have charges of illness much like the illness charges in individuals 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 dying in kids through 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 docs are involved concerning the lingering syndrome generally known as lengthy COVID, about which much less is understood, particularly amongst kids.
The skin advisory committees and the medical academies discovered this stage of great illness to be ample to advocate continued annual vaccinations.
Makary stated this coverage is much like these in different international locations
Makary was correct when he stated that “most international locations have stopped recommending” routine COVID-19 vaccination for youngsters.
“Many international locations 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 worldwide well being.
Makary co-wrote a Could 20 article that included a listing of booster suggestions in Canada, Europe and Australia. It stated in most international locations, the advice was to vaccinate older individuals or these at excessive threat.
Most international locations have taken this course, Schaffner stated, as a result of “by now, 95 % of us have had expertise with COVID, both by way of the vaccine or by way of sickness or each. And second, the present variants are considered a lot milder than among 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 youngsters and adolescents who had beforehand been vaccinated, it didn’t routinely advocate revaccination.
The European Medicines Company advisable 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 advisable the Moderna vaccine for youngsters ages 12 to 17.
Within the United Kingdom, “solely older individuals or these with particular illnesses or sicknesses making them prone to extreme COVID have been advisable to get boosters, and consequently, uptake in these teams was really increased than within the US,” the place outreach and promoting for the vaccinations centered on kids in addition to older individuals, stated Babak Javid, an affiliate professor within the division of experimental medication on the College of California-San Francisco.
The New York Instances discovered that in Europe “many international locations don’t advocate the vaccines for wholesome kids below 5, however the pictures are permitted for everybody 6 months and older,” which means that they are often safely utilized by anybody who’s a minimum of six months outdated.
Docs say the vaccine protects pregnant girls
Consultants disagreed with Kennedy’s suggestion in opposition to vaccinating pregnant girls, saying the vaccine protects pregnant girls and their infants.
Steven J Fleischman, American Faculty of Obstetricians and Gynecologists president, stated, “It is vitally 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. In actual fact, rising proof reveals simply how a lot vaccination throughout being pregnant protects the toddler after beginning, with the overwhelming majority of hospitalised infants lower than six months of age – those that should not but eligible for vaccination – born to unvaccinated moms.”
After a vaccination, antibodies attain the fetus. The docs’ 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 website are attainable.
The federal authorities in Could offered 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 record 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 Improvement co-director. “It seems RFK Jr reversed his personal FDA’s resolution.”
Following the Could 27 video announcement, Makary informed NBC that the choice about vaccination ought to be between a pregnant girl and her physician.
A 2024 evaluation of 67 research discovered that absolutely vaccinated pregnant girls had a 61 % decrease chance of a COVID-19 an infection throughout being pregnant.
What’s subsequent?
In its June assembly, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices may transfer in the direction of much less sweeping suggestions for vaccinating kids, nearer to those who Kennedy enacted.
“In the event you listened to the discussions in the newest earlier assembly, they very a lot appeared to be shifting in a extra focused method,” Schaffner stated.
The query of pregnant girls 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 may again higher flexibility could possibly be for in any other case wholesome individuals who function caregivers or who dwell with extra weak people who find themselves superior in age or are immunocompromised.
