NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.
In a 58-second video posted on the social media site X, Kennedy said he removed COVID-19 shots from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for those groups. No one from the CDC was in the video, and CDC officials referred questions about the announcement to Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. health officials, following recommendations by infectious disease experts, have been urging annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older.
A CDC advisory panel is set to meets in June to make recommendations about the fall shots. Among its options are suggesting shots for high-risk groups but still giving lower-risk people the choice to get vaccinated.
But Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine advocate before becoming health secretary, decided not to wait. He said that annual COVID-19 booster shots have been recommended for kids “despite the lack of any clinical data” to support that decision.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Jay Battacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health, appeared in the video with Kennedy.
Kennedy and other Trump administration appointees have been moving to narrow COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and added restrictions to a recent vaccine approval. Last week, the FDA announced routine COVID-19 vaccine approvals will be limited to seniors and younger people with underlying medical risks, pending new research for healthy adults and children.
HHS officials did not immediately respond to questions about why Kennedy decided to take the step now or release additional information about what went into the decision.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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