Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that he has unilaterally struck the recommendation that healthy children and healthy pregnant people get Covid-19 shots — a move that experts say is unprecedented.
Kennedy made the announcement on the social media site X, flanked by Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Marty Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Kennedy signed a directive outlining the change — a document STAT has viewed — on May 19. It’s not clear why he waited over a week to announce it.
“It’s common sense, and it’s good science,” said Bhattacharya, whose agency has no involvement in the regulation of vaccines, or in decisions on who should get them. Kennedy cited no new evidence to support the decision to rescind the recommendations, nor did he indicate why he circumvented the normal procedure for vaccine recommendations.
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