FILE - In this photo illustration, Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 (L) and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines fill their syringes at Borinquen Health Care Center on May 29, 2025 in Miami, Florida. (Photo illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
New vaccine advisers appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have changed the guidelines for COVID-19 vaccinations.
The panel is now declining to recommend the vaccines to anyone and said that it will be a personal choice for those who want to get a shot.
Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday took the unprecedented step of not recommending them even for high-risk populations like seniors.
New guidelines
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The panel also urged the CDC to adopt stronger language around claims of vaccine risks, despite pushback from outside medical groups who said the shots had a proven safety record from the billions of doses administered worldwide.
The divided panel narrowly avoided urging states to require a prescription for the shot.
The Food and Drug Administration already had placed new restrictions on this year’s shots from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, reserving them for people over 65 or younger who are deemed at higher risk from the virus.
Trump responds to new guidelines
"Operation Warp Speed was, according to just about everybody, was one of the greatest things that any president has ever done in this country. So we're very proud of it. I'm very proud of it. I'm also very proud of Regeneron and some of the things that came out of, you know, all of the labs and all of the research that we've done. So I don't know exactly what the final determination is, but I had the vaccine. I was very happy with it. Here I am," President Donald Trump said in response to the latest guideline change.
Operation Warp Speed was one of Trump’s most universal successes in his first term, yet his handpicked health chief and a growing cadre of Trump’s "Make America Great Again" supporters are distrustful of the very mRNA vaccine technology that the president has championed.
When asked about RFK Jr.'s recent contradicting actions regarding the vaccine, Trump simply said,
"I put him there because I want to have opposite views. That's OK."
Previous COVID-19 vaccine guidelines
The backstory:
Before the recent change in guidance on COVID-19 vaccines on Friday, vaccinations were recommended as a routine step in the fall for nearly all Americans who wanted them, similar to the annual flu vaccine.
COVID-19 vaccines
Big picture view:
Controversy surrounding the guidelines for COVID-19 vaccines has been a topic of debate since the start of the pandemic years ago.
Data from the CDC show proof that the vaccines protect against severe infection and death.
Like flu vaccines, COVID-19 shots now are being updated yearly, but only about 44% of seniors and 13% of children were up-to-date on the coronavirus vaccinations last year, the CDC said.
What they're saying:
Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics said the panel's daylong debate involved clear efforts to "sow distrust" about vaccines and would have "real-time impacts on American children."
But he expressed relief that people could instead follow guidelines from his and other medical groups that still recommend the vaccines be available like in prior years.
"It was a very, very strange meeting," O’Leary said.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from The Associated Press. This story was reported from San Jose.