Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer the recommended action for healthy children and pregnant women.
“Bottom line: it’s common sense and it’s good science. We are now one step closer to realizing @POTUS’s promise to Make America Healthy Again,” Mr. Kennedy wrote in a social media post Tuesday.
In a video attached to the post, Mr. Kennedy said the shot was removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women.
The video featured Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, but no one from the CDC was in the video.
When The Washington Times asked the CDC for comment, an HHS official responded.
“With the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, it is time to move forward. 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,” HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said.
The booster shot has previously been recommended for all Americans ages 6 months and older. A CDC advisory panel is scheduled to meet in June to discuss fall shot recommendations and whether the recommendations should be more focused for specific groups.
“Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children,” Mr. Kennedy said in the video.
Officials from the FDA provided new standards last week for COVID-19 vaccines, saying it will limit approvals for the seasonal shot to seniors and other high-risk Americans.
“For many Americans, we simply do not know the answer as to whether or not they should be getting the seventh or eighth or ninth or 10th COVID-19 booster,” said Dr. Vinay Prasad, who joined the FDA as the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research last month.
Some doctors questioned the FDA’s move, saying it will make the vaccine less insurable and less available to those who want it.
Pew Research Center found that between August 2024 and March 2025, more adults in the U.S., 42%, said they got the flu shot than the updated COVID-19 vaccine, 27%. More than half, 53%, said they’ve gotten neither shot.
Mr. Kennedy is known to be an outspoken opponent of vaccines. Democrats have accused him of promoting vaccine skepticism and spreading misinformation.
He said at a congressional hearing last week that if he had a young child today, he would probably vaccinate them against measles.
He told lawmakers, “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.”
Along with revamping vaccine safety, he has also called for ending the use of ingestible infant fluoride supplements.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
