Today's Edition
(REUTERS)
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday pulled broad support for COVID-19 shots, saying they should be administered through shared decision-making with a healthcare provider.
The directive follows recommendations from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s hand-picked vaccine advisory panel.
The new CDC recommendation maintains access for the shot through health insurance.
The recommendations come at a turbulent time for the CDC, which recently saw the ouster of its former Director Susan Monarez after resisting changes to vaccine policy advanced by Kennedy.
The acting director of the CDC, Jim O'Neill, also signed off on the advisers' recommendations against use of the combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella vaccine before the age of 4 years. Instead, shots will be given for measles-mumps-rubella with a separate vaccine for varicella, commonly known as chickenpox.
The immunisation schedules will be updated on the CDC website by Tuesday, the agency said.
The panel made its recommendations at a two-day meeting in September that highlighted deep divisions over the future of the US immunisation schedules under Kennedy.
Several medical experts warned that presentations at the meeting that cast doubt on vaccine safety could lower immunisation rates, even though they felt the recommendation itself had not restricted - and perhaps even expanded - access for some people.
The American Academy of Paediatrics, an influential US medical group, has already broken from federal policy and pushed its own vaccine recommendations, suggesting all young children get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The US Food and Drug Administration in August cleared updated COVID-19 vaccines for everyone over age 65, but limited its approval for younger people to those with health risks.
The three approved COVID shots are made by Pfizer with German partner BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax with Sanofi.
