‘We’ve empowered parents and health care providers,’ health official Jim O’Neill said.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are defending how they scaled back influenza vaccine recommendations for children amid a moderately severe flu season.
The CDC, with approval from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on Jan. 5 stopped recommending that all children receive an annual influenza vaccine. It now says that parents should only have their children vaccinated after speaking with health care professionals and taking into account various factors, including the risks and benefits of the shot.
The decision came as the CDC reclassified the 2025–2026 flu season as “moderately severe” and estimated flu has recently caused 5,000 deaths and some 120,000 hospitalizations.
Some lawmakers said that officials should not have rolled back the flu vaccine recommendations.
“Children are dying from the flu. Making vaccines harder to get will cost lives,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) wrote on X this week.
“It’s one of the WORST flu seasons on record, and what is our HHS Secretary doing?” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said on X. “GUTTING access to the flu vaccine.”
HHS said in response that it has made no changes to flu vaccine access, supply, or coverage. Officials have said that insurers must still cover the influenza vaccine and other shots the CDC no longer broadly recommends for children, including the hepatitis A vaccine.
Deputy Health Secretary and acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill wrote separately on X that this season’s respiratory illness season is comparable to the 2024–2025 season. He defended the downgrading of influenza vaccine guidance, pointing to a scientific review in which HHS and Food and Drug Administration officials said that no randomized, controlled clinical trials demonstrate that flu vaccines reduce hospitalizations and mortality in children, or transmission from children to elderly individuals.
The officials cited a 2018 review from the Cochrane Collaboration, which concluded, “Although there is a growing body of evidence showing the impact of influenza on hospitalisations and deaths of children, at present we could find no convincing evidence that vaccines can reduce mortality, hospital admissions, serious complications, or community transmission of influenza.”
There were some trials that showed vaccines reduced flu infection.
“Like all immunizations on the childhood schedule, the pediatric flu vaccine is covered by insurance for whoever chooses it,” O’Neill said. “We’ve empowered parents and health care providers to choose the best course of action for each child.”
The CDC says on its website that the flu vaccine, which is updated each year to try to improve its effectiveness, has ranged from 19 percent to 60 percent effective against infection since 2010.
