HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is weighing pulling the Covid-19 vaccine from the government\u2019s list of recommended immunizations for children, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.<\/p>\n
The directive under consideration would remove the Covid shot from the childhood vaccine schedule maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and widely used by physicians to guide vaccine distribution, marking Kennedy\u2019s most significant move yet to shake up the nation\u2019s vaccination practices.<\/p>\n
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has previously questioned the need for kids to get the shot, raising doubts about its safety and citing studies showing healthy children face an extremely low risk of death from Covid.<\/p>\n
Eliminating the vaccine from the CDC schedule would not bar kids from receiving it. But the change would represent an extraordinary intervention by Kennedy to override the agency\u2019s scientific decision-making and reverse a recommendation backed by the CDC and a slate of independent advisers just three years ago.<\/p>\n
The removal would also likely influence vaccination procedures across the nation. Pediatricians rely on the CDC schedule to determine which vaccines they should give children and when to administer them, in order to protect against a range of common infectious diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is weighing pulling the Covid-19 vaccine from the government\u2019s list of recommended immunizations for children, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.<\/p>\n
The directive under consideration would remove the Covid shot from the childhood vaccine schedule maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and widely used by physicians to guide vaccine distribution, marking Kennedy\u2019s most significant move yet to shake up the nation\u2019s vaccination practices.<\/p>\n