How to Think About COVID-19 Vaccines in the Era of R.F.K., Jr.

​

(You could not have someone less qualified than R.F.K. Jr. making these recommendations. He has no medical training and he is a recovering heroin addict. Listen to him talk. He can barely speak intelligibly.)

“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced that the CDC would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children and pregnant women. This decision, made without consulting the CDC’s advisory panel or providing evidence, contradicts the agency’s previous stance and raises concerns about the health of vulnerable populations. While COVID-19 may no longer be the leading health threat, the virus still poses risks, especially for those at high risk, and the decision-making process should prioritize scientific evidence and expert consensus.

​

The coronavirus may no longer be a leading danger to our health. That doesn’t mean it can’t hurt us, or that we don’t need to protect ourselves.

By Dhruv KhullarMay 31, 2025

On Tuesday, in a fifty-eight-second video posted on X, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, made a remarkable announcement: under his watch, he said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer advise healthy children and pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19. For decades, the C.D.C. has based its vaccination policy in large part on the recommendations of a panel of experts, who carefully review data about vaccine safety and effectiveness. The panel was already in the process of updating their recommendations, but Kennedy apparently preëmpted them; the American Academy of Pediatrics said that it had not been consulted, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a statement noting that coronavirus infection during pregnancy “can be catastrophic,” expressing grave concerns about the health of mothers and children. Kennedy, who in 2021 called COVID shots the “deadliest vaccine ever made” and urged the government to revoke their authorization, said in the clip that he “couldn’t be more pleased.”

After Kennedy’s announcement, the C.D.C. seemed to split the metaphorical baby in an update to its immunization schedule. In the new guidelines for children, the entry for COVID vaccines now says, “See Notes.” The notes explain, “Where the parent presents with a desire for their child to be vaccinated, children 6 months and older may receive COVID-19 vaccination, informed by the clinical judgment of a healthcare provider and personal preference and circumstances.” Below that, a timeline for vaccinating children against COVIDappears. Meanwhile, the agency’s position on COVID vaccines for pregnant women is “No Guidance/Not Applicable” In these updates, the C.D.C. appeared at pains to neither undermine its support for the vaccines nor directly contradict its boss’s boss. The agency may have succeeded at that—but an exemplar of clear public-health communication it was not.

Not all vaccines should be recommended for all people. Many countries, including France and the United Kingdom, endorse COVID vaccines only for older individuals and those at high risk for severe cases of the disease. More studies are needed in order to evaluate how much a healthy person benefits from ongoing COVID booster shots if she’s already been infected and/or immunized. Nonetheless, we should not be pleased with Kennedy’s machinations. According to data from the C.D.C., infants under six months of age with COVID have been hospitalized at comparable rates to people in their late sixties and early seventies. Many infants who experience severe illness have no known underlying medical conditions; most are born to mothers who haven’t been vaccinated during pregnancy, and are therefore less able to pass on protective antibodies. (Relatively few older children develop severe COVID.) Meanwhile, pregnant and postpartum women face clear dangers after a coronavirus infection, including blood clots, hemorrhage, and perilously high blood pressure. For this reason, the C.D.C. has considered pregnancy a high-risk condition warranting immunization. One would think that the F.D.A. commissioner, Martin Makary, who appeared next to Kennedy in the video, does, too. Just last week, in an essay that he co-authored in The New England Journal of Medicine, pregnancy appeared in a list of conditions that make COVID riskier. (Makary previously described efforts to bypass scientific advisers as “unconscionable.”)

Kennedy has said that his department will strive for “informed choice” and “radical transparency.” Public health by fiat, or by tweet, achieves neither. COVID-vaccination rates are already low: in recent C.D.C. data sets, less than fifteen per cent of children and pregnant women, and less than a third of health-care workers, had received updated COVID shots. Those who want them already had a choice. (In general, health insurers must cover vaccines recommended by the C.D.C., but are otherwise under no obligation to do so. Without coverage, COVID vaccines can cost around two hundred dollars a dose.) Kennedy cited no evidence in his announcement, and he deprived the C.D.C.’s vaccine-advisory panel of the opportunity to explain their current thinking to the public.

This past winter, I cared for many patients with COVID—but the infection often wasn’t the primary reason that they were being hospitalized. All in all, influenza seemed to me the greater threat. The U.S. had one of its worst flu seasons in years; it appeared that we had reached a long-awaited equilibrium point in which COVID was no longer a leading danger, but rather one of many respiratory illnesses with which we must contend. That’s not to say that it is benign or that it doesn’t merit immunization. After all, we continue to advise almost everyone to get the flu shot—and we shouldn’t forget that COVID vaccines played a central role in bringing us to this stage. I plan to get an updated COVID vaccine this fall. But today, unless you are a young child, you have almost certainly encountered a version of the coronavirus through infection, immunization, or both. Now is a reasonable time for experts to reassess the advice that they give the public about how to stay safe. People who are relatively young and healthy could consider forgoing an annual shot, absent a dramatic change in the virus. (A transmissible new COVID variant called NB.1.8.1 has become dominant in parts of Asia, but so far it isn’t thought to cause more severe illness.) Boosters are most urgent for those whose age or medical condition places them at elevated risk.

The problem with Kennedy’s decision is that it seems to have been his decision, not the decision of deliberative medical authorities. If such an announcement were to come from independent scientists who review data and debate trade-offs, it might have been justifiable. Indeed, if it had stemmed from leaders who did not have a history of vaccine skepticism and a disregard for standard procedure, perhaps we wouldn’t even be discussing it. But this asymmetry is not a sign that we are unfairly blaming the messenger. It is a reminder that science is about more than the right answer, when such a thing exists. Science is a process, and if we follow its procedures with care we can get closer to the truth.

Kennedy’s end run around his department’s own experts is part of a pattern that threatens the proper functioning of science. In recent months, he has helped purge government employees, some of whom were let go by mistake. Prominent scientists have quit, citing interference with their work and outright censorship when their findings don’t conform to certain narratives. This week, Kennedy suggested that he may create “in-house” publications and bar government scientists from publishing in top academic journals—even as a MAHA report from his department was found to be full of errors, misrepresenting some studies and seemingly making up others. (It appears that generative A.I. may have helped to produce it.) Kennedy has shown deep distrust of mRNA vaccines, which have revolutionized preventive medicine; on Wednesday, his department cancelledsome six hundred million dollars’ worth of funding for Moderna that supported, among other things, the development of bird-flu vaccines.

Kennedy and his allies often argue that they’re restoring trust in public health. It’s more accurate to say that he’s reversed the polarity of skepticism. Vaccine skeptics may believe in his leadership; Americans who once put their faith in institutions now have reason to doubt them. At a time when the country faces no shortage of health threats, the value of evidence and expertise is itself under attack. The anti-establishment has become the establishment, and its decisions will affect us all.”