US stops approving Covid-19 shots for children’s other vaccines next time?

One of the best vaccine experts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, Résigned on June 4th weekend after Robert F Kennedy JR Annoudéd that Covvi-9 vaccines would no longer be recommended for most children and pregnancy.

The announcement set off several days with confusion about who will have access to Covid-19 vaccines in the United States in the future. In practice, there has been a drama change to access, although there are likely to be new obstacles to parents in the hope of vaccinating their children. Kennedy’s message still signalizes a troubled circumvention of public health norms.

“My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deeply sitting desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and it is not so good that I am able to continue to do in this role,” Panagiotakopoulos said in an email to Collegues obtained by Reuters.

Panagiotakopoulos supported the Advisory Communization Practice (ACIP), which has advised CDC on vaccine recommendations since 1964. But last weekend, Kennedy country’s highest ranging public health official official has this decades long. “I couldn’t be more thanks for announcing that the covide vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant woman from today is back from the CDC who recommended the immunization plan,” he said in a video sent to the social media platform x on May 27.

Despite its directive, the CDC has so far only made a minor change of its Covid-19 vaccines. Instead of recommending them to children directly, it now recommends vaccination “based on shared clinical decision making”. In other words, parents need to talk to a doctor before deciding. It is not clear how this will affect access to these vaccines in each scenario, but what can make it more difficult for children to get a shot at pharmacies.

CDC’s vaccination guidance in pregnancy is also ambiguous. While its site still recommends a Covvi-19 shot during pregnancy, a note says at the top: “This page will be updated to adapt to the updated immunization plan.”

Kennedy’s notice is contrary to the attitudes of the great public health organizations. Both American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (app) have come out to oppose it.

“CDC and HHS encourage individuals to talk to their healthcare provider about any personal medical decision,” a spokesman for HHS said New scientist. “Under the management of secretary Kennedy, HHS restores the relationship between doctor and teat.”

However, Linda Eckert at the University of Washington in Seattle says the conflict messages are confusing to humans. “It opens up on disinformation options. It undermines confidence in vaccination in general,” she says. “I can imagine that it does not reduce immunization rats in general.”

Research has repeatedly shown covvi-19 vaccination in youth and pregnancy is safe and effective. In fact, Martin Makary, the head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), noted, pregnancy as a risk factor for severe Covid-19 a week, Rediriges Annoudy’s announcement, which further complicated the government’s public health messages.

Kennedy’s message is in line with some other country’s covid policies. For example, Australia and the UK do not recommend Covid-19 vaccines for children unless they risk serious illness. They also recommend that Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy if anyone is already vaccinated.

Asma Khalil, a member of the United Kingdom’s joint committee for vaccination and immunization, says Britain’s decision was based on the reduced risk of the Omicron variant, the cost-effectiveness of vaccination and high population immunity. However, these factors may vary throughout the country. The British population also tends to have better access to healthcare than the United States, Eckert says. “These decisions have to careful consideration of risks and in relation to the national population,” says Khalil. HHS didn’t answer New scientistQuestion about what a similar analysis guide Kennedy’s decision making.

What is perhaps most worrying is the former Kennedy’s message sets. ACIP-a independent group of public health experts who are expected to vote on proposing changes in Covid-19 vaccine recommendations later this month. But Kennedy’s decision has bypassed this process.

“This style of decision-making-by-individuals versus goong through experts who are careful to have conflicts of interest that carefully look at the data-this has never happened in our country,” says Eckert. “We are on unprotected territory.” She cares that the move could pave the way for Kennedy to chip away by other vaccine recommendations. “I know there are many vaccines he has been actively opposed in his career,” she says. Kennedy has previously blamed vaccines for autism and falsely claimed that polio vaccine caused more deaths than it warned.

“What it speaks to the fact that it [Kennedy] Doesn’t see value in these vaccines and will do everything he can to try to devalue them in the public’s mind and make them harder to receive, “says Amesh Adalja at Johns Hopkins University.