CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook joins "CBS Mornings" to break down HHS Secretary RFK Jr.'s announcement that the CDC will no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy pregnant women and for children.

Washington

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revised its COVID-19 vaccine guidelines, no longer recommending the vaccine for healthy pregnant women and children. This decision was announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who did not provide detailed reasoning for the change. Traditionally, such recommendations follow an advisory committee's review and public input, but this process was bypassed.

Medical experts note that pregnancy alters the immune system, increasing risks from infections like COVID-19 for both mothers and infants. Data shows that infants under six months are particularly vulnerable, relying on maternal antibodies for protection. The change in CDC guidance could impact insurance coverage for the vaccine, potentially increasing out-of-pocket costs for families. Experts have called for more transparent discussion regarding the decision and its implications.

CDC no longer recommends COVID vaccine for pregnant women, kids

In today's Health Watch, the Trump administration is making big, big changes to the COVID vaccine recommendations. Health and Human Services Secretary, that's Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced just yesterday that he is rolling back COVID vaccine guidelines for healthy pregnant women and for children. The CDC has previously recommended vaccinations for anybody over six months of age, so that's children, including pregnant women. So to break all this down, sort it out for us, we're joined by CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. John LePook. He always has the answers. Hello, Dr. LePook. I try to answer. Try and you do a good job on that. Questions. So yesterday, Secretary Kennedy did not provide any clarification about why this is happening and why this is happening now. So can you just tell us how COVID affects pregnant women and little kids in particular? Well, I think you have to start off with pregnancy itself, right? So pregnancy is an altered immune state. And really, that altered immunity is why the mother doesn't reject the baby as being foreign. Um, that also increases the risk of having certain types of infections and bad outcomes from it. So flu and COVID, it increases the risk not only to the mother, but to the baby and to the fetus. So that brings us to this recommendation. Now, you have to have some background. Normally, there is an advisory committee meeting. In fact, it's scheduled for June. And it's a totally open, transparent process. You have experts who are talking. You have public input. You hear about the pros and the cons, the questions. Put everything on the table. Put it on the table. And then the committee makes a recommendation, and they give that to the CDC director. And if the CDC director agrees, then they send it on to the HHS secretary. That's no longer the case. Yeah, you said normally. Normally. This has short-circuited that normal procedure. So now we're just hearing this recommendation, but we're not hearing the nitty-gritty details. Or why. Or the why. Why he's doing it. Kennedy says there's a lack of clinical data to support additional boosters for healthy children. Is he... What does the sign say? So I think that's something that's an interesting question, right? So the question is, if you've had COVID as a child, or maybe you've had three or four or five, you know, boosters, what's the incremental benefit from one more? And I think that's an open question. And I'd love to see that debated in an open forum. I think it's trickier when you talk about saying we're not going to recommend COVID immunization to pregnant women. Because I was just doing a deep dive on the data. A CDC study that ended last March, March of 2024, was eight months, showed that hospitalizations, kids under the age of six months have the second highest hospitalization rate, second only to people 75 and over. So they are especially vulnerable, right? Why are they vulnerable? Because as opposed to everybody else who's out there getting maybe infected or getting the boosters, they are born with no immunity. And for the first six months, remember the first shot is at six months of age. Right. What are they relying on? Maternal antibody that crosses and gives them protection. Wow. All right. So what could this decision do when it comes to access or even insurance coverage? Yeah, well, so that's the big thing. If the CDC is not recommending it, then insurance coverage could go away. Right now it's, you know, it's covered in most cases. We look to see what the price difference would be. For kids, it would be about $57 maybe, according to the CDC schedule, and maybe about $137 for adults. So that's not nothing if you're trying to get a vaccine and you don't have a ton of money. And COVID is not nothing either. COVID is still something. I just got my booster last week because I am over the age of 65 and I don't see the downside to getting the booster. Right. And I think that's what you want to discuss in an open forum. And, you know, it's not just getting COVID. And you can say, well, kids generally do pretty well, but there are issues of long COVID, other issues, complications. Kids are not immune from having a bad outcome. So I think I'd like to see the open, transparent discussion. Yeah. All right. Dr. LaPook always has the answers that we're asking. Thank you very much.

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