The vaccine advisory committee of the centers for disease control and prevention voted on Friday to abandon its recommendation for the COVID-19 vaccine, with the committee voting unanimously to recommend that Americans obtain the opportunity “based on individual decision making”, which means that it is a personal choice.
It is not clear what implications will have the vote for insurance coverage for Americans who wish to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Many important insurers have said they would continue to cover the cost of vaccines through at least 2026 regardless of how the committee voted this week.
In a separate vote, the members decided not to require a recipe for the COVID-19 vaccine, and many members said this would create unnecessary barriers.
The members of the Immunization Advisory Committee of the CDCs are seen during a meeting of the Immunization Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on September 18, 2025 in Chamblee, Georgia.
Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
And in another separate vote, members voted that CDCs communicate clear risks about COVID-19 vaccines: the materials that states can choose patients when vaccinated.
The votes follow the recent narrowing of the Food and Medicines Administration of Covid-19 vaccines approval to a smaller group of Americans, those over 65 or with underlying medical conditions. FDA and CDC are sister agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services.
On Thursday, the group voted to reduce the existing recommendations for the combined MMRV shot that protects against measles, papers, rubella and chickenpox.
The earliest Friday, the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee, called Acip, indefinitely postponed its planned vote on whether to stop recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns.
A “yes” vote on the hepatitis B vaccine would have recommended that the first dose be delayed from birth and has given a month of life for babies born to mothers who try negatives in pregnancy.
Robert Malone, member of the panel and vaccine critic, proposed to present the vote for concern that there would have been enough discussion about the safety of hepatitis B vaccines.
Cody Meissner, a panel member, argued that trying to “try the absence of damage” is “it is not a practical objective.”
The presentations on Thursday by the CDC included data on the possibilities of side effects of the vaccine. For hepatitis B, the advisors are considering eliminating a universal recommendation for an opportunity in the hours after a baby is born, and instead only give the opportunity if the mother positively gives the infection during her pregnancy.
The birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine for all babies ensures that everyone has the opportunity to protect themselves from a highly contagious virus that can cause chronic life diseases. A recommendation of the CDC is not a mandate, but it can eliminate barriers, such as cost, for families, so they do not need to take that in their choice for an opportunity or not.
Pediatric medical groups argue to delay this dose of birth until a month of life would leave the opportunity for babies to be lost if they are born from an infected mother with the virus or from a close contact shortly after birth. It can also be difficult to guess who is at risk and should be proven: half of the people living with hepatitis B I don’t know that they are infectedAccording to the centers for disease control and prevention.
When the United States had a risk -based vaccination approach before 1991, it was estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 new hepatitis B infections occurred annually in the United States from 1980 to 1991 and more than 1 million people lived with chronic hepatitis B infectionAccording to the centers for disease control and prevention.
Since then, the virus has been Practically eliminated Among babies in the United States.
However, hepatitis B is still a big problem among adults in the US. UU. It is estimated that up to 2.4 million people in the country They are living with chronic hepatitis BAnd many are asymptomatic and unknown of their diagnosis, according to CDC.
