The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday updated its adult and child immunization schedules to to recommend COVID-19 shots for people 65 and older after they consult with their health care providers.
The CDC also is recommending in its updated immunization schedules that toddlers receive the chickenpox vaccines as a standalone immunization rather than in combination with measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot.
The CDC announced what it called the return to “individual-based decision-making to COVID-19 vaccinations” in a press release on its website Monday morning.
READ MORE: Florida pharmacists receive approval to provide COVID-19 vaccines
The immunization schedules adopt recent recommendations by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has been overhauled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who fired all 17 former members of the vaccine panel earlier this year and replaced them with his own appointees.
“Informed consent is back,” said Acting Director of the CDC and Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill. “CDC’s 2022 blanket recommendation for perpetual COVID-19 boosters deterred health care providers from talking about the risks and benefits of vaccination for the individual patient or parent. That changes today,” he continued.
“I commend the doctors and public health experts of ACIP for educating Americans about important vaccine safety signals. I also thank President Trump for his leadership in making sure we protect children from unintended side effects during routine immunization.”
According to the CDC press release, individual-based decision-making “means that the clinical decision to vaccinate should be based on patient characteristics that, unlike age, are difficult to incorporate in recommendations, including risk factors for the underlying disease as well as characteristics of the vaccine itself and the best available evidence of who might benefit from vaccination.
“Individual-based-decision-making,” the release continues,” allows for immunization coverage through all payment mechanisms including entitlement programs such as the Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Vaccines for Children Program, as well as insurance plans regulated by the Affordable Care Act.”
Vaccines greatly reduce rates of death and disease around the world. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Practitioners, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Pharmacists Association, National Academy of Medicine, and World Health Organization endorse the use of vaccines.
The health insurance trade group AHIP issued a statement last month saying health plans would continue to cover all ACIP-recommended vaccinations, including updated formulations of the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines, with no cost-sharing for patients through the end of 2026.
The Florida Board of Pharmacy met briefly last month to affirm that Florida patients don’t need a prescription from their physician before receiving a vaccine. That’s because Florida law authorizes certain pharmacists who work in collaboration with physicians to administer vaccines.
Chickenpox
Meanwhile, the “new recommendation of standalone chickenpox vaccination for toddlers through age three follows evidence presented to ACIP by the CDC Immunization Safety Office’s that healthy 12–23 months old toddlers have increased risk of febrile seizure” from the combined chickenpox-MMR vaccine compared to those given immunization for chickenpox separately.
“The combination vaccine doubles the risk of febrile seizures without conferring additional protection from varicella compared to standalone vaccination,” the CDC statement says. Febrile seizures are brought on by high fevers.
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