U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women — a move immediately questioned by several public health experts.

In a 58-second video posted on the social media site X, Kennedy said he removed COVID-19 shots from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for those groups. No one from the CDC was in the video, and CDC officials referred questions about the announcement to Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

No other details were released, and HHS officials did not respond to questions about how the decision was made.

“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 said in the video.Flanked by Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who lead the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, Kennedy said in the video announcement that there was no clinical data to support additional shots for healthy children.

Immediate pushback

Some doctors and public health leaders called the move concerning and confusing.

“There’s no new data or information, just them flying by the seat of their pants,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

U.S. health officials, following recommendations by infectious disease experts, have been urging annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older.

Overall, the absolute numbers of children who became seriously ill from COVID are low. Although children with medical conditions would still qualify for the vaccine, it is unclear whether government programs and private insurance will limit coverage for the shots.

The idea of changing the recommendations is not completely ramdom. As the COVID-19 pandemic has waned, experts have increasingly discussed the possibility of focusing vaccination efforts on people 65 and older — who are among those most as risk for death and hospitalization.

A CDC advisory panel is set to meet in June to make recommendations about the fall shots. Among its options are suggesting shots for high-risk groups but still giving lower-risk people the choice to get vaccinated.

But Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine advocate before becoming health secretary, decided not to wait for the scientific panel’s review. He said that annual COVID-19 booster shots have been recommended for kids “despite the lack of any clinical data” to support that decision.

Some physicians and public health leaders expressed concern that HHS officials disregarded a scientific review process that has been in place for decades, in which experts — in public meetings — review current medical evidence and hash out the pros and cons of policy changes.

“It’s a dangerous precedent. If you can start doing that with this vaccine, you can start doing that with any vaccine you want — including mumps-measles-rubella,” said Osterholm, referring to another vaccine that Kennedy has voiced doubts about.

He and others said the announcement raises an array of questions, including whether health insurance companies will keep covering COVID-19 vaccinations and how hard it will be now for people who want the shots to get them.

“The reason we give vaccines to healthy people is to keep them safe,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

More than 1.2 million people have died in the U.S. from COVID-19, most of them elderly. But children haven’t been spared: The coronavirus has been the underlying cause in more than 1,300 childhood deaths since the pandemic began, according to CDC data.

Change of plans

In making the announcement, Kennedy also seems to have reneged on a promise he made to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., during the nomination process, not to alter the childhood immunization schedule.

But since then, Kennedy and other Trump administration appointees have made big changes to the system for approval and use of vaccines.

They added restrictions to a recent vaccine approval. Last week, the FDA announced routine COVID-19 vaccine approvals will be limited to seniors and younger people with underlying medical risks, pending new research for healthy adults and children.

Kennedy’s decision upends the standard process for vaccine recommendations, which are made by advisers to the CDC after considering existing studies, data and possible side effects. The agency director can accept, modify or reject the advisers’ suggestions. The health secretary is typically not directly involved in these matters, but at present, the CDC does not have a permanent director

Broader implications

Among the confusion created by Tuesday’s announcement, experts said, was the implication that the coronavirus isn’t dangerous to pregnant women.

During the height of the pandemic, deaths of women during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth soared to their highest level in 50 years. Indeed, pregnancy was on the list of health conditions that would qualify someone for a COVID-19 vaccination under FDA’s new guidance “framework” announced last week.

Vaccination has been recommended for pregnant women, in part, because it’s a way to pass immunity to newborns who are too young for vaccines and are vulnerable to infections.

“To say that they are not at any risk is simply incorrect,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Vaccinating pregnant women extends the protection to their unborn until the babies are about 6 months old. From birth to 6 months, those youngest infants face a risk of hospitalization on par with adults ages 65 to 74, according to O’Leary.

Dr. Steven Fleischman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said: “The science has not changed. It is very clear that COVID infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability, and it can cause devastating consequences for families.”

This report contains information from the New York Times.