RFK, JR. ORDERS CDC TO STOP RECOMMENDING COVID VACCINES FOR HEALTHY CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN

Order ignores science, which shows pregnant women and newborns have high risk for serious COVID complications

By Miriam Raftery

May 27, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Health leaders are reacting with alarm to Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s  announcement that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have removed the COVID vaccine from its list of vaccines recommended for pregnant women and healthy children.

“That is a dangerous and irresponsible statement,” says Assemblymember Akilah Weber, M.D., an obstetrician and gynecologist who heads up the pediatric and adolescent gynecology division at Rady Children’s Hospital. “Pregnant women and children have faced real, documented risks fromCOVID-19. Dismissing science only puts lives at risk and undermines public trust.”

Dr. Steven Fleischman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, shares that concern.  “The science has not changed. It is very clear that COVID infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability...The COVID vaccine is safe during pregnancy, and vaccination can protect our patients and infants,” CNN reports. “In fact, growing evidence shows just how much vaccination during pregnancy protects the infant after birth, with the vast majority of hospitalized infants less than six months of age—those who are not yet eligible for vaccination—born to unvaccinated mothers,” Fleischman added.

Kennedy has claimed there is a “lack of clinical data to support the repeat booster in children.”  He wants longer-term testing of boosters, which means delaying access as the virus mutates---even as a new strain of COVID has recently been spreading across the U.S. and in California.

However, both young children and pregnant women are considered to be at higher risk of severe complications of Covid-19 infections. Studies have found that Covid-19 vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalization for pregnant women and infants younger than 6 months of age.

Dr.Ian McHardy, senior director of microbiology and infectious disease at Scripps Institute, voiced concern that Kennedy’s action could breed  “skepticism of vaccines because we’re not really giving a good reason for why we’re changing the eligibility requirements. It’s considered universally safe and effective,” he told Fox 5 in San Diego.

A CDC panel is also moving toward restricting COVID booster doses to only be available to people over age 65 and people at high risk, such as those with diabetes.

Yet many people outside of those categories have died of COVID, including a 50-year-old family member of this journalist, who was otherwise healthy. 

Some insurance companies may end coverage of the vaccines for those groups the CDC no longer recommends receive repeat boosters, limiting availability even if vaccines remain available but not recommended.

Back in October 2021,  ECM interviewed Dr. Mark Sawyer, infectious disease specialist at Rady Children’s Hospital in San DIego and an advisor to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on COVID-19 vaccines for children and booster shots, as well as an advisor to the Governor.

We asked him to assess the safety of COVID vaccines compared to risks of COVID-19 for children and teens. Dr. Sawyer revealed that hundreds of children had been treated at Rady Children’s Hospital for COVID-19, including 75 treated in the intensive care unit and another 75 diagnosed with multi-system inflammatory disease, a rare but serious complication of COVID-19 in children.  “To say that COVID is not serious in children is underestimating the virus,” he said.

Serious complications of the vaccines, such as blood clots and heart problems, have occurred in only a couple of cases per every million shots administered, he said. But COVID can cause the same serious conditions and more, so COVID poses a far greater threat to children and others than the vaccines. COVID is also far more dangerous to pregnant women and their unborn babies than the vaccine, which can provide immunities to both mothers and children, he added.