Unprecedented
Nevertheless, in the video posted on social media Tuesday, Kennedy announced that he “couldn’t be more pleased” that “as of today” the COVID-19 vaccine has been removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women. He falsely claimed that there was a “lack of any clinical data” to support the use of booster shots.
In the video, Kennedy was flanked by Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Marty Makary, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner. Makary, who listed pregnancy as a risk factor for severe COVID-19 illness just last week, said in the video that there’s no evidence for use in healthy children. Bhattacharya chimed in to say Kennedy’s announcement is “common sense and it’s good science.”
“We’re now one step closer to realizing President Trump’s promise to make America healthy again,” Kennedy concludes.
Kennedy’s move, like the FDA’s last week, is unprecedented in bypassing the transparent, evidence-based process for setting vaccination recommendations. The CDC sets this guidance and relies on in-depth input from its advisory committee of independent vaccine experts, ACIP.
ACIP meets periodically in all-day meetings to publicly review detailed data on vaccine safety and effectiveness, hear from various stakeholders—vaccine makers, clinicians, patients, scientists, and federal regulators—and discuss recommendations before holding votes on what they think the CDC should do. The CDC typically adopts ACIP’s recommendations.
ACIP has not recommended any such change. Its next meeting is scheduled for June 25–27, when it may discuss COVID-19 vaccines for this season.
