I was recently counseling a patient who was planning to become pregnant. In addition to prenatal vitamins, I discussed the vaccines recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. My patient cut me off, “Is it a choice or is it mandatory?”
“It’s your choice, of course,” I replied, although I explained why vaccination during pregnancy is important to help protect newborns from an array of serious diseases. Because of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., however, I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to offer my patients the choice of that protection.
This month, Mr. Kennedy testified before Congress, and repeated what he’d promised before his Senate confirmation: “I’m not taking vaccines away from anyone.” But this flies in the face of what Americans are experiencing. As a result of Food and Drug Administration restrictions on Covid vaccines put in place last month, vaccines are suddenly harder to get. Average-risk adults in many states can no longer walk into their pharmacy and get the vaccine as they had last year. Most children will need a medical evaluation before they can get it.
Even those considered high risk are struggling to find shots. A 76-year-old teacher in the Pacific Northwest told me that employees at every pharmacy he called said they were unsure when the vaccine would be available “due to government rules.” Even his doctors’ office didn’t have it.
There are certainly valid scientific reasons to consider dialing back Covid vaccine recommendations for low-risk individuals, given that the virus is a different beast than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. But what riles medical professionals is that these changes have not been issued as a result of a standard scientific process. It seems that a political goal was set — to diminish use of the Covid vaccine — and processes were manipulated in order to achieve the desired outcome, while inconvenient scientists, like the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were jettisoned.
For many of us in health care, this unscientific rollback of the Covid vaccine feels like the warning shot. This week’s meeting of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, the C.D.C.’s advisory committee on vaccines, is scheduled to include votes not only on the Covid vaccine, but also the hepatitis B vaccine and the combined measles, mumps, rubella, varicella vaccine, or M.M.R.V. for short.
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The post Kennedy Said He Wouldn’t Take Away Vaccines. This Week Will Be the Test. appeared first on New York Times.
