Don’t be confused by RFK Jr.’s federal COVID-19 vaccine policy – protect yourself and your loved ones by getting vaccinated

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Government officials are confusing the American people by issuing arbitrary new rules for COVID-19 vaccines that ignore the robust system that has made sure vaccines are safe for public use.

Rather than promoting population health, the new Food and Drug Administration licensure for COVID-19 vaccines limits who can get vaccines. After physicians organizations called for his resignation, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – who has a history of vaccine skepticism – took the unprecedented step of firing all 17 members of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). These medical professionals, agency officials and/or representatives from professional health associations with extensive research and clinical expertise are being replaced in part by vaccine skeptics and nutrition experts.

Kennedy also posted a video on X, announcing that his agency would no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for children or healthy adults under 65 years old or pregnant women (even though pregnancy is among listed high-risk conditions). 

The news stunned the medical world, and even the CDC was caught off guard. 

I had polio as a child and am an experienced family doctor who has treated measles and whooping cough. I strongly disagree with these changes, and I’m worried Kennedy and our current government officials are both giving the wrong advice and destroying a robust system that protects the public. Vaccination against infectious diseases is the most important medical tool ever invented. The CDC estimates that in the U.S. just between September 2023 and August 2024, COVID-19 vaccines prevented about 100,000 hospitalizations, 18,000 intensive care unit admissions and 6,000 in-hospital deaths. 

Generations of Americans have been safely protected from infectious diseases – so much so that we have, despite COVID-19, mostly forgotten the dangers of deadly outbreaks like whooping cough and measles. We have also become more attuned to vaccine side effects than we are to the ravages of the actual diseases. 

Even if you have worried about vaccine safety, you should be concerned about limited vaccine access promoting the return of dreaded diseases.

Traditionally, the FDA, advised by its vaccines advisory committee consisting of a panel of outside, independent, technical experts meeting in a public forum, has ensured the safety, purity, potency and efficacy of vaccines and then licensed them. Then the CDC’s ACIP recommends when, for whom and how the vaccines should be used. 

Physicians have been shocked, and you are at increased risk because this system of checks and balances has been thrown aside. 

Essentially by fiat, without any transparent analysis or documented process, two new government officials, Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner, and Dr. Vinay Prasad, his vaccine expert, published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine outlining new federal licensure and use rules for COVID-19 vaccine boosters. Boosters were licensed only for adults over 65 and younger adults and kids only if they have one of 21 specified high-risk medical conditions. Previously scheduled FDA and CDC vaccine expert advisory meetings were canceled, and to date, no known advisory committee or experts have met to review new COVID-19 licences or recommended use.

Adding to the confusion, to this day, the CDC’s updated website has not removed the coronavirus vaccines from the recommended childhood vaccine schedule, as Kennedy said it would. Instead, the agency continues to recommend boosters based on “shared clinical decision-making,” meaning children can get vaccinated if their parents and doctors agree. By restricting the license for yearly COVID-19 vaccine boosters, the FDA has made this use “off label,” or optional. Even those over 65 or with high-risk conditions who could benefit from more than one vaccination per year must get exceptions, and insurance payment is not assured. 

It is also now harder and less likely for younger people, including health care workers and those with elevated exposure risk or the family or friends of frail, elderly or immunocompromised people, to get vaccinated. 

Pregnancy offers more chances for mixed messaging and uncertainty around COVID-19 vaccinations. During an interview with NBC News, FDA Commissioner Makary said the decision to receive updated coronavirus vaccines “should be between a doctor and a pregnant woman.” But the updated CDC immunization schedule for children, healthy adults and during pregnancy is confusing and unclear.

Kennedy, Makary and the CDC are all offering different rules.

The subtext of all of this bureaucracy and shifting language offers an obvious truth – the government is now avoiding endorsing or promoting vaccination and creating disincentives for its production and use. 

This is dangerous because public health problems require collective intervention for success. As with the current measles epidemic, leniency and individual autonomy may lead to inadequate community protection, which causes the system to fail. 

History shows that targeted vaccine programs are less effective than broad, population-based programs. For instance, increased uptake and benefits of the cancer-preventing HPV vaccine multiplied as the eligible population was expanded. When the use of hepatitis A vaccination, initially recommended for high-risk populations, was expanded to become a routine childhood vaccination, its uptake and effectiveness markedly improved. 

Evidence and a large body of literature highlight why getting COVID-19 boosters makes sense for kids. Children – particularly those with underlying health conditions – can die from COVID-19 infection and also risk contracting long COVID. Child deaths, occurring early in life, represent a disproportionate number of years of life lost due to COVID-19. Vaccinations minimize these deaths and long-term health issues. 

Infected children – many asymptomatic – can play a role in spreading COVID-19  to others (family, teachers, grandparents). Pregnant people and fetuses are at significant increased risk from COVID-19 infection and this can be mitigated by vaccination.

Federal officials have a responsibility to respond to this data.

The new rules also complicate vaccine production and administration. Will manufacturers produce a vaccine for a smaller market? How are pharmacists to establish that an adult under 65 has a qualifying condition before vaccine administration? Some medical insurances will not cover the vaccines or could deny payment without documentation of a qualifying condition.  

Public officials are wrong when they say past immunizations or infections have built up wide immunity. We know people can have multiple COVID-19 infections and that immunity from prior vaccination decays quickly. This misunderstanding markedly underestimates the benefits of a population-wide booster campaign for COVID-19.

The new HHS, FDA and CDC recommendations were not transparently derived. They are muddled and confusing –  and in part wrong. They create practical and logistical problems, making professional and public acceptance and use of COVID-19 vaccination boosters less likely. 

This will only add to more illness and death. Do not be confused. COVID vaccines have been proved safe and effective and have few and rare side effects. 

Get one for yourself and to protect your family and your community. 

Jeoffry B. Gordon had a family medicine practice in Santa Cruz for 35 years until his retirement 17 years ago. He spent four years in a federally qualified health center treating the unhoused. He is currently a member of the California Citizens Review Panel for Critical Incidents (fatalities due to child abuse). He served as a medical bioethics consultant at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego for 10 years. He spent eight years on the Medical Board of California, which licenses and disciplines physicians. Gordon lives in Santa Cruz and is a widower with two daughters and four grandchildren.