The CDC says people age 65 and older should talk to their doctor about COVID 19 vaccines. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

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.

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.

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“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.

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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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Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services is continuing to recommend that anyone over 6 months old get an updated, annual version of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Meanwhile, the state’s DHS has put out a standing order for the vaccine. State officials say that will ensure that most Wisconsinites are able to get the COVID vaccine at pharmacies across Wisconsin without a prescription. 

This year’s Wisconsin DHS guidelines mirror guidance from a broad range of medical experts. And the guidance echoes what state and federal health officials have recommended in recent years.

Wisconsin’s recommendations stand in contrast, however, to recent moves at the federal level.

This year, the federal Food and Drug Administration has approved the new COVID vaccine for Americans ages 65 and older and for people with certain higher risk conditions. At the national level, a panel is set to meet later this week to discuss vaccine recommendations that will be provided to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a vaccine skeptic who has promoted false information about vaccines.

Wisconsin is now one of several states where health officials have moved to take statewide action on vaccines because of worries about how federal actions could impede vaccine access.

“In the past several months, leaders at federal agencies have made policy decisions and issued recommendations that aren’t supported by or directly contradict scientific consensus,” Dr. Ryan Westergaard, a chief medical officer within DHS, said during a news conference.

The latest announcement from Wisconsin’s health department comes a day after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers issued an executive order directing the Wisconsin DHS to put out its own COVID vaccine recommendations.

The order also attempts to ensure that Wisconsinites won’t have to pay out of pocket for COVID vaccines. It says that the state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance shall “direct all health insurers within their regulatory authority to provide coverage for the COVID-19 vaccine without cost-sharing to all their insureds.”

“Vaccines save lives, folks,” Evers said in a statement accompanying his order. “RFK and the Trump Administration are inserting partisan politics into healthcare and the science-based decisions of medical professionals and are putting the health and lives of kids, families, and folks across our state at risk in the process.”

State health officials are recommending that Wisconsinites get their new COVID vaccines to coincide with the fall spike in respiratory diseases. Those shots are recommended even for people who have gotten COVID shots in the past. That’s because the vaccines released in 2025 are designed to hedge against potentially waning immunity and to target newly emerging versions of the virus, Westergaard said.

“The same way that we recommend getting your flu shot booster every year, because the flu that’s going around this year might be slightly different than the flu that was going around last year, we recommend a COVID booster,” he said.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Wisconsin health department continues to urge new COVID-19 vaccine for anyone over 6 months old is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.