Health experts fear potential public health impacts from RFK Jr. halting COVID vaccine recommendations for kids, pregnant women
Health experts are raising concerns about the potential public health impacts after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is rolling back COVID-19 vaccination recommendations for kids and pregnant women.
Just one week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced they are limiting access to who can get the COVID-19 vaccine, Kennedy said he would remove the CDC's recommendation for healthy children and healthy pregnant women to get vaccinated.
Kennedy called the latest move common sense and good science, but some health experts said the restrictions could have some significant public health impacts.
"I couldn't be more pleased to announce that as of today the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule," Kennedy announced in a video posted on X.
But experts said the latest policy will create a barrier between those who are not in these pre-specified groups and insurance companies, possibly deterring insurance providers from wanting to pay for something that is not required by the FDA or CDC.
"The one issue that comes up is whether or not all the insurance companies will pay for the vaccine based on these very incorrect guidelines that RFK Jr. released," said Dr. Tina Tan, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, and a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Lurie Children's Hospital.
While most insurance companies said they are still covering COVID-19 vaccines as preventive care, health experts said they're concerned about how the new change will impact healthy children and pregnant women.
"From a physician perspective, yes, pediatricians should definitely still continue to recommended COVID-19 vaccines to all their patients," Tan said.
Many doctors in the Chicago area are concerned the decision to roll back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women did not go through the right process within the CDC, and fear the negative impacts it could have on public health.
"We were assured during the kind of confirmation hearings for the HHS director that vaccines would not be taken away from people, and that's essentially what this is doing," University of Illinois Chicago epidemiologist Dr. Katrine Wallace said.
"HHS has made this recommendation, and it's not clear if that's a CDC recommendation or if that's an HHS recommendation. They seem to be taking it off the official list, but I don't know under what authority they actually did that," said Dr. Emily Landon, an infectious disease expert at University of Chicago Medicine. "All of the countries that have COVID vaccines recommend that pregnant women get the COVID vaccine in order to pass that protection onto newborns."
Last week, the FDA said it would continue approving COVID-19 vaccine updates for seniors and people with an underlying medical condition, including pregnancy and diabetes, but would require vaccine makers to conduct major new clinical trials before approving them for wider use. The decision means many Americans without underlying conditions might not have access to updated shots this fall.
University of Illinois Chicago epidemiologist Dr. Katrine Wallace said it's more difficult to assess risk factors for children than it is for adults.
"In fact, the CDC has presented data that, of children that are hospitalized for COVID-19, about 50% of those kids had no underlying condition putting them at risk for that hospitalization. So vaccination becomes important, because it's not easy to risk profile children like it is with adults," she said.
Wallace said, during the 2024-2025 respiratory virus season, more than 300,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, and more than 30,000 people died from COVID-19. She said the latest data shows COVID-19 is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., and is among the top 10 causes of death in children.
As far as Chicago Public Schools are concerned, for the current school year, the COVID-19 vaccine is only recommended and not required for students.
District officials said the COVID-19 vaccine will remain a part of the federal and state vaccines for children program, despite the clinical eligibility guidelines that have recently changed. If the Illinois Department of Public Health updates its guidelines, CPS will follow suit.
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