Covid vaccines are set to no longer be routinely recommended for pregnant women, teenagers and children in the US, reports suggest.
The Department of Health and Human Services, led by RFK Jr, is anticipated to soon eliminate the CDC’s recommendation for certain groups, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
DailyMail.com revealed in February how several members of Trump’s administration were pushing for tighter restrictions on the Covid vaccine.
At present, the CDC recommends that everyone aged six months and older, including pregnant women, should receive the Covid vaccine.
However, the advice given to young and healthy individuals has faced scrutiny because these groups generally have a low probability of being hospitalized or dying from the virus.
Additionally, there are concerns regarding potential side effects of the vaccines, such as myocarditis or heart inflammation, which is rare but observed slightly more frequently in young adults.
There have also been concerns that pregnant women are not benefiting from the vaccine, although studies show it is safe for the group and doesn’t raise their risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or birth defects.
It was not immediately clear whether the recommendation for those groups to get the Covid vaccine would be removed completely or updated just to say patients should consult with their doctors.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services is set to stop recommending Covid vaccines for certain groups, reports suggest
RFK Jr has long targeted Covid vaccines, filing a petition with the FDA in 2021 — six months after the rollout began — to have their use suspended.
His circle also includes a number of individuals who have been critical of the Covid vaccines.
Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who has been nominated to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has previously backed a petition calling for the mRNA vaccines to be paused and retested.
While Dr Aseem Malholtra, a British cardiologist named to a major health advisory role in the administration, has called for the jabs to be suspended and reassessed.
The new FDA commissioner, Dr Marty Makary, has also said that he would not be ‘encouraging or insisting young, healthy children get a Covid shot unless there is new evidence that emerges that suggests there is a clear benefit’.
The US is an outlier on its Covid vaccine recommendations, with other countries — including the UK — now only recommending the shots to those aged 75 years and over, those in care homes and those with a weakened immune system.
Pregnant women were also previously recommended the Covid vaccine in the UK, but this was dropped this year after studies did not show a clear cost-benefit.
US officials insist the difference is due to America’s health system, saying insurance companies wouldn’t cover the shots unless they are recommended to a wide age group.
Most people in the US are currently not receiving the Covid vaccine.
Latest data shows that since the start of this year’s flu season, only 23 percent of adults aged 18 years and over received the updated Covid vaccine. Among under-18s, 13 percent received the updated shot.
At the same time, uptake of other vaccinations — including the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot — has dipped in the US, which experts say is behind the major outbreak that now risks the country losing its measles elimination status.
During his first term, President Donald Trump spearheaded the development of the Covid shots in record time which was widely regarded as a major medical breakthrough.
The mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna are estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives globally, including at least 3million in the US.
But in recent years President Trump has been reluctant to take credit for the achievement, for fear of alienating his core voter base which ahs become skeptical of the shots.
He has signaled his support for other vaccines, however, including the polio vaccine — which he praised previously as the ‘greatest thing’ and said he was a ‘big believer’ in.
The Covid vaccines have been linked to a small risk of heart damage and Guillain-Barre syndrome, where the immune system attacks nerves, causing pain, fatigue and numbness.
Data from the US Covid vaccine injury compensation program suggested that 14,000 people had filed claims for injury or death they claimed were caused by the Covid vaccine as of December 2024, out of the 270million Americans who received at least one dose of the vaccine.
