Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Pediatrician Is Big Mad Trump’s Not Recommending Healthy Kids Get COVID Jab

[Screenshot/CNN]

Dr. Paul Offit, a director at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, got upset on Tuesday after President Donald Trump’s administration ruled that the COVID-19 vaccine is no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., along with other senior health officials, announced on Tuesday that the COVID-19 vaccine has been removed from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women. Offit told CNN’s Dana Bash that the new guidelines are a “bad idea” since there have been healthy children who had died from COVID.

“I think it’s a bad recommendation,” Offit said. “I mean, you surely know that by six months of age, all children will be vulnerable to all viruses continuing to circulate. There have been retrospective studies looking at children, meaning people less than 18 years of age, who’ve gotten a yearly vaccine to show that there is [a] benefit. So it doesn’t make sense, I think it puts children unnecessarily in harm’s way and there’s been about 1,000 deaths during this pandemic in children. One-third of deaths were in children who were perfectly healthy before that. So I think it’s a bad idea.”

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Offit further complained that the administration did not “consult” advisory committees or other medical professionals before making this determination. Despite the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) roster showing he is on the board, a video showed that he did not convene with them during their meeting.

The pediatrician, a member of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine advisory committee, advised his own son who is in his 20s to not get a third booster shot. He reportedly told the Daily Mail in September 2023 that most young and middle aged Americans with no chronic diseases do not need to get a booster shot.

The mortality rate in children who contract COVID-19 is rare, with over 17,400 of deaths occurring in people under the age of 20, according to Unicef. Among those 17,400 deaths, 53% of the deaths occurred in children ages 10-19, while 47% occurred among children ages 0 to 9.

Kennedy said former President Joe Biden’s administration recommended that children receive a COVID booster without providing “any clinical data.”

Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes for Health (NIH), said the new change is “common sense” and “good science.” Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner, said there is no evidence that healthy children need the COVID vaccine and argued that most countries have removed the recommendation for the specific age group.

COVID vaccines can lead to heart complications called myocarditis and pericarditis, which have mainly been reported in males ages 12 to 39, according to Mayo Clinic. The CDC still maintains that children over the age of 6 months and pregnant women should receive the vaccine.