Trump Admin Pulls Back From COVID Boosters For All Americans, Demands More Evidence

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will require more evidence for what top officials describe as the uniquely American “repeat-boosters-in-perpetuity strategy,” the recommendation that even healthy adults receive a yearly COVID shot.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad unveiled the new policy in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Tuesday. The policy marks a departure from a policy initiated under the Biden administration to universally recommend a yearly COVID-19 booster akin to an annual flu shot.

“I think we have to admit to ourselves that America is deeply divided on the policy of repeated COVID-19 vaccines or boosters,” Prasad said at an FDA town hall. “There are some Americans who are worried that the FDA has not fully documented and interrogated the safety harms of these products and they are categorically opposed to these products. There are also some Americans, we also have to recognize, who are desperate for additional protection and demand the product.”

Most Americans are uncertain about boosters, as middling uptake of yearly boosters demonstrate, Prasad argued. The new guidelines would align the U.S. more closely with other high-income countries around the world, according to the new framework.

Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom largely recommend booster shots for populations 60 years old or older and for people with underlying conditions.

“The truth is that for many Americans we simply do not know the answer to whether or not they should be getting the seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth COVID-19 booster as current policy would have us go down the road of,” Prasad said.

The FDA thus must collect more evidence, he said.