With school back in session and winter around the corner, it’s time for yearly vaccines. For many, it’s become a routine to get the newest COVID vaccines and boosters for the last four years. However, the CDC is placing new rules and restrictions on who can get the vaccine.
COVID death rates are the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 because of the success of vaccines. The science behind COVID hasn’t changed, so why are changes being made?
Leaders in the CDC, such as RFK Jr. and his appointed members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which include vaccine skeptics, have revisited COVID and other vaccine mandates, as well as cut $500 million toward mRNA vaccine research.
For starters, on May 27th, RFK Jr. posted on X, “Today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from @CDCgov recommended immunization schedule. Bottom line: it’s common sense and it’s good science. We are now one step closer to realizing @POTUS’s promise to Make America Healthy Again.”
Despite the secretary’s statement, vaccines have decades of research that prove their efficacy and safety. The Department of Health and Human Services have many resources on the safety and effectiveness of immunizations on their website.
For example, according to Our World in Data, based on information from the CDC, the COVID death rate varies significantly depending on the level of vaccination. Those with full immunization and boosters die from COVID far less than those with fewer or no vaccinations. Also, contractions of COVID and serious adverse reactions decrease with vaccinations.
According to a study by the CDC in 2024, “Among approximately 117 million children born during 1994–2023, routine childhood vaccinations will have prevented approximately 508 million lifetime cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1,129,000 deaths”, as well as saved trillions of dollars of medical costs.
Last week, the CDC vaccine panel voted unanimously to lower the guidelines for the newest COVID vaccine for healthy individuals. According to The Hill, “For people between six months and 64 years old, the recommendation advised that vaccinations be based on individual-based decision-making,” therefore the vaccines wouldn’t be required or recommended by the federal government and will be left to personal choice. Additionally, many of those between six months and 64 years old and without underlying health problems need to consult a doctor or require a prescription to get the COVID vaccine.
Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, stated regarding vaccines at a news conference “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?” The ruling won’t begin to be enforced until later this year, but the state plans on lifting vaccine restrictions for children attending school. According to a PBS interview, “it would end the requirement that kids are inoculated against diseases like hepatitis B, chicken pox, influenza, and meningitis”. As stated by Dr. Ladapo regarding vaccine mandates, “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
Dr. Mona Amin, a Floridian pediatrician, said to PBS about the new mandates that “in order for there to be immunity in a community, there has to be 95 percent of the community has to be vaccinated or immune to measles. Now in Florida, the vaccination rate for kindergartners right now is under 90 percent, around 89 percent”. Without vaccine mandates, these numbers are at risk of declining, which threatens the health of the community.
Finally, while the Florida mandate changes do not apply to the whole country, multiple states are preparing their own health plans. California, Oregon, and Washington have joined to create their own vaccine mandates based on scientific experts and public health agencies and organizations instead of the CDC.
According to a joint statement from governors of the respective states, “The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences. California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”
While the mandate changes are minimal, they reveal the beginning of a pattern for public health in America. In the first year of Trump’s administration, billions of dollars have been redirected from medical research and health insurance, and RFK Jr.’s MAHA plan will continue to reorganize our public health structure, impacting all Americans.