Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal, in “HHS to Stop Recommending Routine Covid Shots for Children, Pregnant Women,” by Liz Essley Whyte. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
The Trump administration is planning to drop recommendations that pregnant women, teenagers and children get Covid-19 vaccines as a matter of routine, according to people familiar with the matter. …
Richard Hughes, a lawyer and vaccine advocate, said he was worried about immunocompromised people who prefer to have friends and family vaccinated. He also said the move would “have a behavioral impact on whether people choose to get vaccinated.”
Related reading:
- May 16, 2025: People, “Trump Administration Plans to Stop Recommending Routine COVID Shot for Children, Pregnant Women: Report,” by Cara Lynn Shultz.
Critics of the move said it can discourage vaccination, which can severely impact the health of immunocompromised people who rely on herd immunity. Lawyer and vaccine advocate Richard Hughes told the WSJ that rolling back the recommendations would “have a behavioral impact on whether people choose to get vaccinated.”
- May 17, 2025: Vanity Fair, “Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Who Leads the Department of Health and Human Services, Will Soon Announce the Changes to the Vaccine Schedule,” by Katie Herchenroeder.
The Health Department’s expected move to stop recommending the COVID vaccine to pregnant people, teenagers, and children could further endanger immunocompromised people across the nation, according to Richard Hughes, a lawyer and vaccine advocate. Doing so would “have a behavioral impact on whether people choose to get vaccinated,” he told the WSJ.
- May 27, 2025: The New York Times, “U.S. Will No Longer Recommend Covid Shots for Children and Pregnant Women,” by Apoorva Mandavilli and Christina Jewett. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Mr. Kennedy has been an ardent opponent of vaccines for decades, and filed a petition with the F.D.A. demanding that they revoke authorization of the Covid shots during a deadly phase of the pandemic. He also threatened to sue the F.D.A. if they authorized Covid vaccines for children.
The move throws insurance coverage of the vaccines for children or pregnant women into question. Commercial insurers rely on the advice of C.D.C. advisers for coverage decisions, which the health secretary can override.
“I would say it’s a legal gray area,” said Richard Hughes, a lawyer who has represented vaccines companies.
- May 27, 2025: The Washington Post, “RFK Jr. Ends Covid Shot Recommendation for Healthy Children, Pregnant Women.” (Read the full version – subscription required.)
- May 27, 2025: Bloomberg Law Health Law & Business, “RFK Jr. Says Covid Shot Isn’t Recommended for Healthy Kids,” by Gerry Smith, Jessica Nix, and Rachel Cohrs Zhang.
Following is an excerpt:
No health secretary has changed vaccine recommendations before in this way, said Richard Hughes, a health lawyer at the firm Epstein Becker Green and former drug company executive. It’s a “legal gray area,” he said.
- May 27, 2025: STAT News, “RFK Jr. Ends Covid Vaccine Recommendations for Healthy Children, Pregnant People,” by Helen Branswell. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
It is extraordinary that a health secretary would remove vaccines from a CDC vaccination schedule without undergoing a consultation process, and without asking the advice of the ACIP, said Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Law San Francisco who follows vaccination policy closely.
“There is a process and it hasn’t been followed,” Reiss told STAT in an interview. She suggested the lack of process could make the decision vulnerable to being overturned, if it is challenged in court, a view shared by Richard Hughes, an expert on vaccines policy law at the firm Epstein Becker Green. A court would demand that such a change in policy was the result of a deliberative process, Reiss said.
