Utah health experts voice concern over RFK Jr.’s changes to COVID vaccine guidelines

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Secretary Kennedy announced that pregnant women and healthy children will no longer be recommended to receive the COVID-19 vaccine — a decision that’s raising concern among some Utah health officials.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared the announcement Tuesday on his X account. 

“The COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” Kennedy said. 

Kennedy said the guidelines before President Trump’s second term were not backed up by solid data. 

“Last year the Biden Administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot despite the lack of any clinical data to support the complete booster strategy in children,” Kennedy said. 

Kennedy’s remarks sparked some concerns among Utahn health officials. 

“Politics doesn’t cause me to have a huge reaction anymore. We need to go back to the science and history and keep moving forward and recommending the vaccines,” Rich Lakin, Immunization Director for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, said. 

Lakin says the change could create confusion for some doctors and some insurance companies, because CDC recommendations often influence insurance coverage for private plans and Medicaid programs. 

“The population they recommended not to receive the vaccine, we will know in the next several months if insurance companies will still cover for that population. That’s the downside,” Lakin said. 

Utah is also one of many states seeing a drop in respiratory vaccination rates, including COVID-19 vaccinations. 

“We reached a threshold of those who continued to get vaccinated and those who did not,” Lakin said. 

Lakin said it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why Utah’s respiratory vaccination rates are going down, but he has some speculations. 

“Misinformation, and now you have RFK, the Health and Human Services director, and as someone who isn’t 100% on board with vaccinations, I’m sure people look at that,” Lakin said. 

Lakin also said that some people don’t see the importance of vaccines anymore. 

It is still unclear how federal health officials will define healthy children or pregnant women, but RFK Jr. says this is a positive outcome. 

“We are now one step closer to fulfilling the president’s promise to make America healthy again,” Kennedy said. 

The FDA also recently announced its plan to limit access to future COVID-19 shots only to people over 65 years old or those with underlying health conditions.