Delays in Covid shots for kids is latest bid by Trump officials to restrict vaccines

The Trump administration is holding back Covid vaccines for all children in at least 11 states and one US territory, and officials have not indicated when or whether the shots will become available.It’s the latest step by top officials to restrict vaccines in America – and it sets a precedent for holding back other immunizations, experts said.“They’re using every means possible to try and make it harder to get vaccinated,” said Daniel Jernigan, the former director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).These actions could be a way of “testing the waters” on halting other vaccines in the federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, Jernigan said. “There’s nothing preventing them from doing that for the other vaccines as well,” he added.More than half of children in the US receive vaccines through VFC, and some states and American Samoa are also known as “universal” vaccine purchasers, which means they buy vaccines through this system for all children in the state or territory, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. But as updated pediatric Covid shots roll out throughout the country amid a Covid wave, HHS is not providing Covid vaccines through the VFC program, with no timeline on when the vaccines will be sent.That means the 52% of children who are eligible for VFC – because they are Alaska Native or American Indian, under- or uninsured, or enrolled in or eligible for Medicaid – as well as all children in universal VFC states don’t have access to Covid vaccines.“The delay in VFC means delays in these states’ ability to get vaccine for all children,” said Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and chief medical officer at Callen-Lorde Community health center.The states with universal purchase programs include Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming. Some states, like Idaho, also purchase some of the recommended vaccines in this way.Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), confirmed that Covid vaccines are not available through VFC. Because Covid can circulate at other times as well, including in the summer, “an arbitrary September date should not be treated as a public-health deadline for Covid-19 vaccine procurement”.The CDC is “finalizing decisions” about Covid vaccine procurement through the Vaccines for Children and Section 317 programs, and “additional information will be available soon,” Hilliard said.She did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about the effects on universal VFC states.The updated Covid shot provides the best protection against variants that are circulating now, Jernigan said. “Getting the updated vaccine out there is going to provide the most protection to kids,” he said. HHS is “not allowing the best vaccine to be out there to prevent the most disease.” Previous vaccines expired earlier this year.Vaccinating children is especially important early in life; infants have one of the highest hospitalization rates from Covid after the 65-plus age group. “Those are kids that have never been exposed to Covid,” he said, and vaccination can help prevent these severe outcomes.“It’s, in a sense, almost derelict that you would not make it available to those most vulnerable to severe disease,” Jernigan said.Jernigan is concerned about the vaccines that were recently designated “shared clinical-decision making,” including hepatitis B, meningococcal vaccines, and the flu shot; a judge’s order has stayed such changes for now.Robert F Kennedy Jr, HHS secretary and longtime vaccine opponent, has claimed that these changes have not affected vaccination, even as public confidence in vaccines sags after years of misinformation.“We have not taken vaccines away from anyone. We have preserved access,” he said at an anti-vaccine conference last week.Hilliard, the HHS spokesperson, did not respond to a question about how Kennedy’s statement squared with the decision not to make Covid vaccines available.“Not allowing universal ordering states to order vaccine is limiting access,” Daskalakis said.The restrictions on vaccines are part of a pattern at HHS, Jernigan said, “trying to find each lever to keep the vaccine from being accessible.” The administration has taken multiple steps to decrease the availability of vaccines, “just making it harder and harder” to get the vaccines, he said, calling it “death by a thousand cuts”.