Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is contemplating the removal of the COVID-19 immunization from the CDC’s suggested vaccine list for children, assert two insiders privy to the topic. This potential shift would not absolutely prevent children from acquiring the vaccine, but it does stand to impact the methodology of vaccinations in the United States.
Child health specialists depend on the CDC’s vaccine schedule as a guideline on what immunizations children should receive and their timing. This schedule also assists insurance companies in determining which vaccines should be included in their coverage plans. Kennedy, well known for his scepticism about vaccines, has labeled the COVID-19 vaccine as the ‘most dangerous vaccine in history.’
He has argued that adequate tracking systems are lacking for verifying whether COVID-19 vaccines have the efficacy and safety put forth by data from the United States and other nations that demonstrates they dramatically reduce deaths caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Kennedy is at the helm of the Children’s Health Defense group, reputed for its vaccine opposition.
In year 2022, this entity threatened to take legal action against the FDA if they promoted the COVID vaccine usage in children below five years of age. A discussion arose last week within the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) over the option of weakening the autumn’s COVID vaccine recommendation to being only suggested for adults or kids with a high probability for severe illness.
Presently, everyone above the age of six months is advised to take the seasonal COVID shots, however, recent deliberations amongst the ACIP’s COVID-19 Work Group revealed that 76% of members were supportive of a risk-based (non-universal) vaccine approach for the upcoming 2025-2026 respiratory virus season.
The United States somewhat diverges from the norm by advocating that everyone, including children and adults devoid of risk factors, should take an annual COVID-19 vaccine. This outlook was highlighted by Shira Doron MD, MS from the Tufts Medical Center in Boston, and Monica Gandhi MD, MPH, who works at the University of California San Francisco.
Several reasons lead to this unique stance, with one notable rationale being that uninsurance policies often exclude vaccines from their coverage when they aren’t recommended on a universal scale. This was insightfully pointed out by Drs. Doron and Gandhi.
The details surrounding the possible withdrawal of the COVID-19 vaccine from the CDC’s schedule are still under consideration and subject to alteration. ‘There has been no definitive conclusion yet,’ clarified HHS representative Andrew Nixon.
In children, COVID-19 tends to manifest mildly, or sometimes, with no observable symptoms. Between October 2024 and March 2025, kids and adolescents accounted for around 4% of hospitalizations due to COVID, with the highest concentration of sufferers being infants below six months of age.
More than half of the hospitalized children (59%) had at least one pre-existing health condition. The CDC has stated that, similar to adults, children having obesity, diabetes, asthma, chronic lung disease, sickle cell disease, or immunosuppression disorders could experience severe COVID implications.
As of the 2024-2025 period, only a mere 13% of an American children population opted to take the COVID vaccine. This vaccine was added to the CDC’s list of routine immunizations after it received an endorsement from ACIP in 2022.