By Josh Nathan-Kazis

Federal health authorities have officially dropped their recommendation that pregnant women get vaccinated against Covid-19. The policy change comes despite scientific evidence that pregnancy makes women more likely to get severely ill from Covid-19 , and that vaccination can protect pregnant women and their babies.

Officials also removed their recommendation that children get vaccinated for Covid-19, including those at high risk for severe disease. The government now says it's up to parents to decide whether their children should get a shot, and it isn't taking a position -- including for children with compromised immune systems.

The change in recommendations marks the first time that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has narrowed access to vaccines in the U.S.

On Tuesday, Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic, ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its vaccine recommendations, bypassing existing regulatory processes, which involve public meetings held by scientific experts.

The changes the CDC made Thursday seem to go beyond Kennedy's statement earlier this week. Kennedy had said the agency would no longer recommend the shots for "healthy children and healthy pregnant women." But the CDC's revised guidelines don't directly recommend the shot for any children, including those at higher risk for illness. There's also no specific recommendation for high-risk pregnant women.

During his confirmation process, Kennedy had committed to allowing the CDC's outside advisory committee to continue its role governing U.S. vaccine policy. This week's Covid-19 changes undercut that promise.

The new CDC guidelines continue to recommend that all adults aged 19 to 64 get an annual Covid-19 booster, with older adults receiving two annual doses. But the CDC now explicitly excludes pregnant women from that recommendation.

The new vaccination guidelines don't say that Covid-19 vaccination is "contraindicated" during pregnancy, but instead say the CDC has "no guidance" on Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy. Previously, the guidelines affirmatively recommended vaccination during pregnancy. One updated page on the CDC website says in a text pop-up that women should "delay vaccination until after pregnancy."

Pregnant women are broadly considered to be at high risk from Covid-19 infections. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration's director listed pregnant women as among high-risk groups who should continue to have access to updated Covid-19 shots.

"Women who are pregnant, people who are pregnant, have an increased risk of hospitalization, clearly, and an increased risk of death, clearly, as compared to women of the reproductive age who aren't pregnant," Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and a current member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee, told Barron's on Friday. "Those are published studies."

Older pages on the CDC website continue to say that vaccination against Covid-19 is important during pregnancy. "Covid-19 vaccination remains the best protection against Covid-19-related hospitalization and death for you and your baby," reads one page on the CDC site, last updated in September.

For children, the CDC now says that children aged six months to 17 years should get a Covid-19 shot based on "shared clinical decision-making," regardless of their risk level. That regulatory shorthand means the agency isn't taking a position on the vaccination policy for the age group.

"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," the CDC now says.

For immunocompromised children, the CDC says the "shared clinical decision-making" approach will allow them to get vaccinated. Previously, the CDC had recommended extra doses for children who are moderately or severely immunocompromised children.

The new policy applies both to the primary series of shots and to annual boosters.

Dr. Nancy Bennett, a professor emerita at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, who chaired the CDC's vaccine advisory committee from 2015 to 2018, told Barron's that the new policy means that the shots are still available for children but will no longer be routine.

Offit notes that children can get very sick from Covid-19: 6,600 children were hospitalized from Covid-19 over the past year, he says, and 152 died.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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May 30, 2025 13:30 ET (17:30 GMT)

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