The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is looking into dropping the recommendations for routine COVID-19 vaccinations of children, teenagers, and pregnant women.
The consideration comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recommends that individuals six years and older should receive updated coronavirus shots, regardless of their previous inoculations against the terrible illness.
COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations
It remains unclear if the department is actually planning to remove the recommendation or only for those groups or if it only wants to suggest that patients should discuss the matter with their doctors about the potential risks and benefits of the vaccines.
The development comes as roughly 14% of pregnant women and 13% of children as of Apr. 26, 2025, received the updated COVID-19 vaccine. There are three shots authorized for use in the United States; Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Novavax.
Moderna and Novavas declined to comment about the situation while the HHS and Pfizer did not immediately respond to requests for comments by Reuters. The department is currently led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is a longtime vaccine skeptic, according to Reuters.
Martin Makary, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, previously raised concerns about several public health efforts amid the health crisis and opposed vaccine mandates for use by the general public.
Now, Novavax is making efforts to resolve several issues with the FDA regarding its own COVID-19 vaccine. This comes after the health regulator missed its target on Apr. 1, 2025, to approve the company's shot.
Potential Adverse Effects
When executive director Leland Lehrman said that the HHS and CDC were going to announce the dropping of the recommendation, people broke into applause. Despite this, it is unclear how Kennedy is planning to enact the change as federal health agencies usually rely on independent advisory bodies for vaccine recommendations, Stat News reported.
If Kennedy decides to circumvent his advisers and reverse the recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, it would be a highly unusual situation. Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Law San Francisco, said that without any process, things will get worse.
She said that overturning the recommendation of COVID-19 shots to children, teens, and pregnant women means that insurance companies are no longer required to cover the vaccines on their programs.
Washington officials have already started to point questions of CDC scientists regarding the COVID-19 vaccine's toll on kids younger than 12 years. This suggests they are considering putting an end to its use for that particular age group, as per the New York Times.
