Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hand-picked advisory panel declined to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for anyone on Friday — leaving it up to Americans to decide if they want the jap or not.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted unanimously to move away from broad recommendations for the vaccine and instead suggested people make individual decisions, in consultation with their doctor or a healthcare provider, on whether to get the shot.
ACIP declined to recommend prescriptions for COVID-19 vaccinations, in a narrow, 6-6 vote, where the chairman of the panel broke the tie.
The panel also advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to adopt stronger language about the risks of vaccination. Many outside medical groups, however, say the COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax have proven to be safe.
Myocarditis, an inflammatory condition of the heart muscle, was discovered in 2021 to be a rare vaccine side effect in mostly young men.
A scientist at the hearing told the panel that he had been researching vaccine-related myocarditis until the Trump administration canceled his grant.
The panel’s decisions are not final until they are approved by CDC Acting Director Jim O’Neill.
“I commend the committee for bringing overdue scientific debate on vaccination to the American people,” O’Neill said in a statement.
The series of votes by ACIP follows the Food and Drug Administration’s decision last month to refine eligibility standards for COVID-19 vaccines, restricting people under 65 without an underlying health condition from receiving the vaccine.
The COVID-19 virus resulted in as many as 51,000 US deaths and more than 250,000 hospitalizations last fall and winter, according to CDC data released in June.
Young children and the elderly — particularly those who were unvaccinated — were most at risk for hospitalization.
Roughly 44% of seniors and 13% of children were up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccinations last year, according to the CDC.
“If you make a recommendation that people are simply not going to follow, I don’t think that’s wise,” ACIP member Dr. Cody Meissner said during Friday’s hearing.
The advisory panel was also expected to vote on whether to scrap a CDC recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns but postponed making a ruling. ACIP had been weighing a possible recommendation to delay the shot for newborns — an option already available to parents — but faced criticism from pediatricians and disease experts arguing that hepatitis B shots are safe and have led to a sharp drop in infant infections.
Amid initial confusion, the panel also reversed a recommendation made Thursday on the MMRV vaccine, a combination shot protecting against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella, for kids in the government’s Vaccines for Children (VFC) program.
The panel had recommended the MMRV vaccine for young children in the program for low-income families, while scrapping the recommendation for all other children under the age of 4.
Friday’s reversal now aligns the recommendation — that all children under 4 be immunized for varicella (the virus that causes chickenpox) separately from a combined shot for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
“It was a very, very strange meeting,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
O’Leary warned that the panel’s decision not to recommend COVID-19 vaccines would have “real-time impacts on American children.”
He further described the ACIP’s decision as “extraordinarily vague” and argued the discussion around COVID-19 shots was aimed to “sow distrust” about vaccines.
Insurers traditionally lean on ACIP recommendations to decide which vaccines to cover at no cost to patients.
America’s Health Insurance Plans, a national trade association representing insurers, said earlier this week that it would “continue to cover all ACIP-recommended immunizations that were recommended as of September 1, 2025, including updated formulations of the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines, with no cost-sharing for patients through the end of 2026.”
Kennedy, a longtime skeptic of vaccines, ousted all 17 members of ACIP earlier this year, and replaced them with his own picks, in what he described “a clean sweep” needed to “re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”
Former CDC Director Susan Monarez, who was fired by Kennedy last month, told senators on Wednesday that she was axed for refusing to rubber-stamp ACIP recommendations.
Kennedy has flatly denied Monarez’s claim.
With Post wires
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