Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women: warns against

In May 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS downgraded the COVID-19 shot recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women, removing the broad recommendation for those groups, per Bloomberg Law.

Kennedy’s stated reasoning, as reflected in the announcement, is that the benefit-risk balance for these groups did not justify a blanket recommendation. The change was among the first major vaccine-policy moves of his tenure and set the tone for the broader childhood-schedule overhaul that followed in January 2026. Public-health organizations criticized the downgrade, arguing the vaccine still protected vulnerable members of those groups.

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