(Reuters) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped recommending routine COVID-19 vaccinations for pregnant women and healthy children, U.S. health regulators said on Tuesday.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a video posted on social media platform X that the vaccines have been removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule for those groups.
Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic whose department oversees the CDC, has been remaking the U.S. health system to align with President Donald Trump‘s goal of dramatically shrinking the federal government.
“We are now one step closer to realizing @POTUS’s promise to Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy said.
The CDC had previously recommended updated COVID vaccines for everyone aged six months and older.
Studies with hundreds of thousands of people around the world show that COVID-19 vaccination before and during pregnancy is safe, effective, and beneficial to both the pregnant woman and the baby, according to the CDC’s website.
But U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said in the video that there was no evidence that healthy kids need routine COVID shots.
Most countries have stopped recommending it for children, he added.
“With the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, it is time to move forward,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
COVID vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The new recommendations come a week after the U.S. FDA said it plans to require new clinical trials for approval of annual COVID-19 boosters for healthy Americans under age 65, effectively limiting them to older adults and those at risk of developing severe illness.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Maju Samuel)
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