HHS will remove the CDC’s recommendations for those individuals “as a matter of routine,” people familiar told The Wall Street Journal.
The announcement is “expected in the coming days,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting.
At post time today, the CDC’s website states that everyone six months and older should get the COVID-19 vaccine.
It was not clear if the department is planning to remove the recommendation entirely for those groups or just suggest that patients talk with their doctors about risks and benefits, the report said.
Reuters reported that as of April 26, about 14% of pregnant women and 13% of children had received the updated COVID vaccine, according to the CDC.
In the U.S., three COVID shots have been authorized for use - Moderna (MRNA.O), and Pfizer-BioNTech's (PFE.N) / (22UAy.DE), messenger RNA based vaccines along with Novavax's (NVAX.O), protein-based shot.
Moderna and Novavax declined to comment, while the HHS and Pfizer did not immediately respond to Reuters requests seeking comment.
The Trump Health and Human Services Department is led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Martin Makary had also raised concerns about a number of public health efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and opposed vaccine mandates for the general public.
Novavax is currently trying to resolve issues with the FDA for its vaccine shot, after the health regulator missed its April 1 target to approve the shot.
In addition to the CDC recommendation changes, the FDA is planning to roll out a new framework for vaccine approvals next week, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Our friend Debra Heine, reporting for American Greatness, reminded us that Kennedy, who has long been a vaccine critic, filed a citizen’s petition with Dr. Meryl Nass of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), to the Food and Drug Administration on behalf of Children’s Health Defense (CHD) in May of 2021, urging the FDA to revoke their emergency-use authorizations, citing the “growing safety concerns.”
Alarming safety signals were in evidence very early into the rollout of the vaccines, as the pair noted in their petition.
“According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data, there have been 192,954 reported adverse events following COVID vaccination, including 4,057 deaths between Dec. 14, 2020 and May 7, 2021,” Kennedy and Nass wrote at the time.
Moderna, and Pfizer and BioNTech, have Covid shots using messenger-RNA technology that have received emergency authorizations for use in children as young as six months, and full approvals for those 12 and older. Novavax’s shot, which uses an older protein technology, has authorization for children 12 and up.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said Thursday that he does not recommend the use of messenger-RNA technology in children.
“Separate from my role as a regulator at the FDA, I am not encouraging or insisting young, healthy children to get a Covid shot unless there is new evidence that emerges that suggests there is a clear benefit,” he said.
“We want to see vaccines that are available for high-risk individuals,” Makary told reporters. “And at the same time, we want some good science. We want some good clinical data.”
In further good news for COVID vaccine critics, Kennedy this week appointed British cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra as Chief Medical Adviser on his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, the Daily Mail reported.
As chief medical advisor of MAHA – a grassroots lobbying group – Dr Malhotra is not formally employed by the federal government, but he will serve as a leading voice of the movement, working closely with grassroots groups to advance its policy agenda.
Dr Malhotra will also relocate from his home in the UK to Washington, D.C., to stay closely engaged with the HHS, FDA, and other key agencies.
Malhotra, a former advisor to the UK government, became a COVID vaccine critic after studying Pfizer and Moderna randomized controlled trial data, which showed that the risk of suffering serious adverse effects of mRNA vaccines was significantly higher than the risk of being hospitalized with Covid-19.
Malhotra said in peer-reviewed paper in September 2022 that “There has been a rise in out of hospital cardiac arrests and heart attacks linked to Pfizer’s Covid-19 mRNA vaccine with plausible biological mechanisms of harm.” He added, “pharmacovigilance systems and real-world safety data, coupled with plausible mechanisms of harm, are deeply concerning, especially in relation to cardiovascular safety.”
Malhotra’s own father died of a cardiac arrest shortly after receiving an mRNA injection.
Malhotra’s paper, entitled “Curing the pandemic of misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines through real evidence-based medicine,” was praised by a host of leading doctors and scientists around the world, including Jay Bhattacharya, then-Professor of Medicine at the University of Stanford, now the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“Malhotra makes a good case that there is considerable heterogeneity across age groups and other comorbid conditions in the expected benefits and expected side effect profiles of the vaccine,” Bhattacharya commented at the time.
The doctor said on X Thursday that “the first person to call me and thank me for my courage after I called for a suspension of COVID mRNA vaccine in 2022 was RFK Jr.”
- RFK Jr.
- Department of Health and Human Services
- mRNA COVID shots
- Pregnant women, teenagers, children
- Center for Disease Controls (CDC)
- Moderna
- Pfizer-BioNTech
- Novavax
- FDA vaccine approvals
- Children's Health Defense
- Adverse events
- messenger RNA technology
- high risk individuals
- Dr Aseem Malhotra
- MAHA
- National Institutes of Health
