CDC Makes Big Change to COVID Shot Guidance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has adopted recommendations by a new group of vaccine advisers, and stopped recommending COVID-19 shots for anyone—leaving the choice up to patients. The government health agency on Monday announced it has adopted recommendations made last month by advisers picked by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the AP reports. Before this year, US health officials—following recommendations by infectious disease experts—recommended annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older. But Kennedy, who has questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, abruptly announced in May that COVID-19 vaccines were no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.

He also dismissed the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with a handpicked group. The new group voted last month to say all Americans should make their own decisions. But the CDC also says vaccine decisions, especially for seniors, should involve checking with a doctor, nurse, or pharmacist. The recommendation was endorsed by Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O'Neill, who is serving as the CDC's acting director. O'Neill signed off on it last week, but HHS officials announced it Monday. 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.

In a statement Monday, O'Neill celebrated the change, saying past guidance "deterred health care providers from talking about the risks and benefits of vaccination." "Informed consent is back," O'Neill said in a statement some doctors objected to, pointing out that informed consent never went away. Major medical societies continue to recommend shots for younger children, pregnant women and others at higher risk of severe illness. They say the Trump administration's discussion of risk overemphasizes rare side effects and doesn't account for the dangers of coronavirus infection itself.