The Washington Post reports that officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were blindsided by the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary’s announcement ending the vaccine recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tweet and video announcement on Tuesday to remove the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women from the CDC’s recommended immunizations apparently came as a complete surprise to agency staff, according to the Washington Post.
Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic, apparently made the decision on his own and said in the tweet that the action was due to “common sense and good science.” And, he said, it will help achieve the Trump administration’s promise to “Make America Healthy Again.”
The announcement came in the wake of a new Food and Drug Administration vaccine policy, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that approved COVID vaccines only for those 65 and older and people at high risk for severe illness due to medical conditions, which included pregnancy.
On Thursday morning, the CDC website still recommended a COVID vaccine for children six months and older on its immunization schedule as well as for healthy pregnant women and those breastfeeding or trying to become pregnant.
The Washington Post said that public health experts and agency officials interviewed for the article believe that the contradiction is part of a movement by the administration to “erode public trust in the CDC.”
NPR said that Kennedy apparently made the decision without the usual input from independent outside advisers, and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices isn’t scheduled to meet until late June.
Insurers are currently required to cover the cost of vaccines that the CDC recommends. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Washington Post that Kennedy’s announcement may make the vaccines less available and less affordable.