US drops Covid-19 vaccine recommendation for healthy children, pregnant women

TimesLIVE

5 days ago

The US has stopped recommending routine Covid-19 vaccinations for pregnant women and healthy children, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr announced in a social media post on Tuesday, circumventing the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) traditional recommendation process.
Kennedy, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya said in a video the shots have been removed from the CDC's recommended immunisation schedule.
The changes come a week after they unveiled tighter requirements for Covid-19 shots, effectively limiting them to older adults and those at risk of developing severe illness.
Traditionally, the CDC's advisory committee for immunisation practices (Acip) would meet and vote on changes to the immunisation schedule or recommendations on who should get vaccines before the director of the CDC made a final call. The committee has not voted on these changes.
Kennedy, a long-time vaccine sceptic whose department oversees the CDC, has been remaking the US health system to align with President Donald Trump's goal of dramatically shrinking the federal government.
'Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get another Covid-19 shot despite the lack of clinical data to support repeat booster strategy in children,' Kennedy said in the video.
The CDC, following its panel of outside experts, previously recommended updated Covid-19 vaccines for everyone aged six months and older.
Insurers said they are reviewing the regulatory guidance to determine their policies, which typically follow the Acip recommendations.
A spokesperson for CVS Health said the company is determining whether changes in health insurance coverage are required as the federal government reassesses Covid-19 vaccine eligibility, while a Blue Cross Blue Shield Association spokesperson said preventive health benefits, including Covid-19 vaccines, are essential in keeping patients healthy.
'The recommendation is coming down from the secretary, so the process has just been turned upside down,' said William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre and a consultant to the Acip.
Schaffner said the CDC's panel was to vote on these issues at a June meeting, where he had expected them to favour more targeted shots instead of a universal vaccine recommendation, 'but this seems to be a bit preemptory'.
Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Law San Francisco, said in a Facebook post going around the advisory committee might hurt the agency in the case of potential litigation.
Studies with hundreds of thousands of people around the world show Covid-19 vaccination before and during pregnancy is safe, effective and beneficial to the pregnant woman and the baby, according to the CDC's website.
But Makary said in the video there was no evidence that healthy children need routine Covid-19 shots. Most countries have stopped recommending it for children, he added.
Covid-19 vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer did not respond to requests for comment.
Dr Cody Meissner, professor of paediatrics at Dartmouth, who co-wrote an editorial with Makary during the Covid-19 pandemic against masks for children, said he agreed with the decision.
He believed the US had been overemphasising the importance of the Covid-19 vaccine for young children and pregnant women and previous recommendations were based on politics, adding the severity of the illness generated by the virus seems to have lessened over time in young children.