‘There’s no evidence healthy kids need it today, and most countries have stopped recommending it for children,’ FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said.
Health officials on May 27 announced they’re narrowing recommendations for COVID-19 vaccinations.
“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,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a video on social media platform X.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s online versions of the schedules were updated to reflect the changes.
The latest versions of the vaccines were cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in 2024 without any clinical data. The CDC previously advised pregnant women and children to receive at least one dose of the currently available formulations of the shots, even if they had previously been vaccinated.
Those recommendations came “despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children,” Kennedy said.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, said in the video: “That ends today. It’s common sense, and it’s good science.”
Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, added: “There’s no evidence healthy kids need it today, and most countries have stopped recommending it for children.”
The CDC, FDA, and National Institutes of Health are all part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which Kennedy heads.
It’s not clear if the CDC was involved in the decision.
A query to the CDC was answered by the HHS. A spokesperson for HHS told The Epoch Times in an email that “as part of the Trump administration’s commitment to common sense, the COVID-19 vaccine will be removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule” and “HHS and the CDC remain committed to gold standard science and to ensuring the health and well-being of all Americans—especially our nation’s children—using common sense.”
Just 13 percent of children and 14 percent of pregnant women have taken one of the vaccines since the fall of 2024, according to CDC data.
The decision to remove the vaccines from the schedules for healthy children and pregnant women came after some members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said during an April meeting that they supported narrowing the recommendations.
