Controversial Vaccine Changes by RFK Jr. Spark Pushback From Doctors

The COVID-19 vaccine will be removed from the list of recommended shots for healthy children and pregnant people, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US Health Secretary, announced on X Tuesday.

“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 a video.

While unusual, it is in line with RFK’s general health philosophy. He frequently shouts out “MAHA moms,” a group of vocally vaccine-skeptical parents whose backing has played an important role in RFK’s political success.

The moms are a driving force behind the health secretary’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, and are fueled by a strong distrust in medical institutions, a rejection of vaccine safety, skepticism about fluoride in the water supply, and concerns about the health impact of seed oils, as well as ultra-processed foods.

The Trump administration previously recommended that everyone six months and older get the COVID-19 vaccine, advice which still stands on the CDC website at the time of publication.

OB-GYNs are pushing back

The new policy will mean that the COVID-19 vaccine is only recommended to people older than 65 and those at high risk for severe COVID-19.

That is a group that should — and does — include all pregnant women, according to obstetricians, professional associations, and even Dr. Marty Makary, the newly appointed commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Last week, Makary included pregnancy in a New England Journal of Medicine article listing medical conditions that would put someone at higher risk for the disease, alongside asthma and cancer.

“There is no OB-GYN in this country that I know who is in agreement with this recommendation,” Dr. Amanda Williams, a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist in northern California, who is the interim chief medical officer at March of Dimes, told Business Insider. “Pregnancy is a high-risk condition.”

Williams says people should ignore the latest government recommendation, and continue to follow the advice of professional associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which both continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant people.

“ACOG’s recommendations have not changed as the science has not changed,” the organization told BI in a statement.

Pregnancy suppresses the immune system, making people more vulnerable to infectious diseases like COVID. Pregnancy also prompts widespread changes to a person’s vascular system and respiration, which can make it harder for a pregnant body to fight off the virus.

“When patients have COVID, they are more likely to have miscarriage, stillbirth, preeclampsia, and preterm birth,” Williams said. “When a patient gets COVID and is pregnant, they’re more likely to need to be hospitalized, intubated, and unfortunately die because of COVID.”

She remembers the case of a healthy, young mother-to-be who contracted COVID during the height of the pandemic, had to be intubated, and ultimately died, a few days after giving birth.

“The very last thing that she said to the obstetric team was, ‘I wish I had gotten the vaccination and not listened to other people,'” Williams said.

There are rumors online that COVID-19 vaccines mess with fertility and can cause miscarriages. Even though the claims have been widely discredited, they persist.

“Any person who’s been pregnant before knows it’s really hard to get a deep breath and to walk up and down stairs, even in normal pregnancy — imagine what that’s like then with COVID on top of it,” Williams said.

“I made it my personal mission to be vocal, especially in communities of color — where there is well-earned distrust — to talk about the vaccine, what the safety data has shown us, and to try to be a trusted messenger and bridge builder so that things like that wouldn’t happen again.”

If given during the second or third trimester of pregnancy, vaccines can also help protect a newborn baby from COVID for roughly their first six months of life, through the transfer of maternal antibodies.

“All the existing data shows that these vaccines can help protect children and they can help protect pregnant women and they can help protect even infants after they’re born,” Jesse Goodman, a former FDA chief scientist who is now director of Georgetown University’s Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship told STAT. “I’m pretty taken aback by this.”