US CDC drops COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for children and pregnant people

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is no longer recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant people, under new guidance that comes directly from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy announced in a video posted to X Tuesday morning that the CDC had removed the shots from its immunization schedule. Previously, the agency had recommended both initial vaccines and annual boosters for children starting at 6 months old and more frequent boosters for those with immunocompromising conditions.

The CDC had also previously included pregnancy and recent pregnancy on a list of underlying medical conditions that increase a person’s risk of severe COVID-19.

“I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that, as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” Kennedy says in the video, citing a lack of clinical data “to support the repeat booster strategy in children.” US Food and Drug Administration commissioner Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya joined Kennedy for the announcement.

Despite Kennedy's comments about repeat boosters, it appears that the CDC’s recommendations will also apply to whether a child or pregnant person should receive an initial COVID-19 vaccine. "The CDC recommendations for use of COVID-19 vaccines for children ages six months to 17 years are rescinded," an HHS spokesperson says in an email to C&EN. "The CDC is directed to remove COVID-19 vaccines from the recommended Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule by Age and recommended vaccines during pregnancy." The CDC childhood vaccination schedule had not been updated online as of 9:00 a.m. Wednesday.

The CDC’s recommendations help health insurers determine if they’re required to cover the cost of immunizations. Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies must cover 100% of the cost of all vaccines recommended by the CDC’s vaccine committee and director under the Affordable Care Act.

Kennedy’s announcement comes about a month before the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) had been scheduled to meet to discuss recommendations for the 2025–26 COVID-19 vaccines. Changing the agency’s recommendations without the committee’s input is highly unusual since the CDC usually follows the ACIP’s lead.

Makary and Vinay Prasad, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, also published new guidelines in a New England Journal of Medicine perspective only last week indicating that the FDA would authorize annual COVID-19 boosters only for people 65 years old and older and people with certain health risks—which at the time included pregnancy (N. Engl. J. Med. 2025, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsb2506929).

Like Kennedy, the FDA officials sidestepped an advisory process: their announcement came 2 days before a meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee that was centered on COVID-19 boosters.

Vaccine researchers told C&EN last week they were concerned that HHS leaders were choosing to skirt the advice of their own experts.

“There are some, including me, who are worried about what precedent this departure sets,” said Grace Ryan, an assistant professor at UMass Chan Medical School who researches vaccine hesitancy.