Some doctors in the Bay Area are questioning the Trump administration's change in COVID vaccine recommendations.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer recommend that healthy children and pregnant women get the COVID vaccine.
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WATCH HERE"Healthy children and healthy pregnant women have been removed from the CDC Recommended Immunization Schedule," Kennedy said in a video posted to X.
Kennedy said the Biden administration's previous guidelines lacked clinical data.
But some doctors said the Kennedy's video does not offer any evidence.
"By removing that recommendation from a respected organizations we're, I think, starting to tread into some dangerous territory as far as public mistrust," said Dr. Melissa Adrouny, an OBGYN at Good Samaritan Hospital.
Adrouny said when pregnant women get the COVID vaccine, there are benefits for the baby.
"We've seen real world data," Adrouny said. "We all remember 2020 and we've seen that vaccinations during pregnancy can severely cut down on maternal morbidity and mortality. Specifically, outcomes like ICU admissions and pre-term delivery."
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SIGN UP Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Law San Francisco, said Kennedy is circumventing the CDC and the advisory committee on vaccines.
"If and when this is charged in court, the administration is going to be in trouble," Reiss said. "First, they ignored the procedures and didn’t go through the process. Second, they didn’t explain it very well and administrative agencies are required to explain what they do."
Reiss fears if the COVID shot is no longer recommended for healthy kids and pregnant women, insurance companies will not cover it. But the professor think legal challenges to this could overturn the move.
"In this case, the decision could prevent people from having access to the vaccine," Reiss said. "So people who are denied coverage may bring legal lawsuits and they have a very good chance of winning."
Still, the Trump administration said it is the right move.
Kennedy's announcement comes as a new COVID variant is sweeping through China and is being monitored by the World Health Organization.
While there are a handful of cases in the United States, Stanford scientists confirmed an infection in California. The variant is reported to be highly transmissible.
