I had a painful experience at my local CVS this morning. I went in to get my flu shot and saw a pregnant woman standing at the pharmacy counter. She asked for last year’s formulation of the COVID-19 vaccine so she could get vaccinated before her delivery date. The pharmacist furrowed his brow, and looked her up in the system. ‘You’ve already received the 2024-25 vaccine. I’m not sure if you’re eligible. Hold on’. He called over the other pharmacist. She looked at a piece of paper on the desk. They then spoke quietly to each other and said to the woman waiting: ‘Sorry, we can’t give you the vaccine since you already received this formulation. You have to wait until the new vaccine comes out and see if you will be eligible after they update the label’. The woman just repeated ‘But I’m pregnant. I need the vaccine to protect my baby’. Both pharmacists looked upset, and one of them added ‘We’re taking this day by day – the information keeps changing’. The woman proceeded to call her OBGYN to ask what to do.
A few hours later, I got some frantic texts from my sister, also trying to get her COVID vaccine before the label changes on Friday. After making a literal map of pharmacies in her neighborhood and visiting CVS, local pharmacies, and Walgreens, she was finally able to get a COVID-19 vaccine – paying $206 out of pocket. This came after negotiating for 10 minutes with the pharmacist who insisted that she would be able to get the new vaccine when it came out, because it would be ‘crazy’ if the FDA made age or risk-based limitations on eligibility. With an information vacuum in public health guidelines, even pharmacists themselves are in the dark about changes coming to vaccine access.
How did we get here?
How is someone trying to protect themselves – and their baby – being refused a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine in 2025?
Unfortunately, the web of misinformation and distrust sowed by the current administration, which has elevated actors from Children’s Health Defense and other antivaccine groups to federal positions, has created this climate of confusion and fear. The resulting vaccines access challenges will affect all of us. This climate will literally result in illness and death.
Misinformation Has Turned to Violence
Two weeks ago, I looked at my phone and saw a headline that stopped me in my tracks: “Shooting at CDC leaves one dead”. The Roybal campus – where I worked on measles outbreaks with brilliant colleagues, built public health tools to fight COVID, MPX, and Polio outbreaks, and chatted with friends in the hallways. A campus full of scientists, doctors, epidemiologists, and more was attacked by a shooter who believed vaccine misinformation enough to bring five automatic weapons and fire over 500 rounds.
The silence has been deafening since the attack. There has been no statement from the White House, and only a limp statement from the HHS secretary who claimed it was a shooting ‘near’ the CDC. Yet violence was directed at government public health workers. David Rose – who was 33 years old, the same age I am – was killed while bravely defending the campus and its residents. My friends and colleagues sheltered behind filing cabinets and under desks for hours, waiting for marshals to clear the buildings. A generation of public health workers, who have already sacrificed so much, are now traumatized by a workplace shooting fueled by misinformation from the very leaders they report to.
This violence against public health workers comes amid an increasingly hostile climate for science and truth – particularly concerning vaccines.
- On May 27, RFK Jr. announced via Twitter that HHS was removing the recommendation for COVID-19 vaccines for healthy pregnant women and children.
- On June 9, RFK Jr. dismantled the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, replacing its members with individuals he hand-picked, many of whom have a history of vaccine denial, and/or stand to gain personally from increased vaccine hesitancy and confusion.
- The consequences for ACIP were swift – with members voting on June 26 to remove Thimerosal-containing flu vaccines, a preservative the anti-vaccine movement has focused on despite strong evidence of its safety in vaccines, and sharing plans to re-evaluate the childhood vaccine schedule. A vote on the fall COVID-19 vaccines was removed from the agenda, leaving a vacuum of information about where we stand with COVID vaccination for the coming season.
- On August 5, RFK Jr. pulled back $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccines, cutting 22 active projects to develop vaccines using this lifesaving platform.
What Lies Ahead? We May Lose the Option to Get Safe and Effective COVID Vaccines
The FDA is rumored to be updating the COVID-19 vaccine label this Friday, as reported by Your Local Epidemiologist. The vaccine may only be licensed for those aged 65+ and those under 65 who are deemed ‘high risk’, leaving many healthy adults and children without a way to protect themselves from COVID-19. The Pfizer vaccine may not be renewed for healthy children under 5, leaving children in this age group without an option to get vaccinated. And yet, those trying to protect themselves before this recommendation changes are already being turned away – showing how chaotic and confusing this vaccine environment has become due to the prevalence of mis- and dis-information coming from HHS.
There is so much more to say – I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of all the ways that public health is under attack, and what it means for individual Americans trying to protect themselves and their children from preventable diseases.
Finding information to trust right now can be hard – here are some reliable resources:
- The Vaccine Integrity Project met on August 19 to discuss fall vaccinations as a stand in for what ACIP used to be. The materials from those presentations are available here.
- The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued recommendations on COVID-19 vaccines for infants, children, and adolescents on August 19, strongly recommending COVID-19 shots for children 6 months – 2 years, and advising shots for healthy older children if parents want them vaccinated. For the first time in 30 years, these guidelines disagreed with CDC.
Just remember, nothing about this is normal. YLE’s graphic on how the fall vaccine rollout is different this year helps to shine a light on all the ways norms have been disturbed.
I don’t know what the future holds for vaccines in this country, but I know that I am furious and heartbroken that this year, and moving forward, I may not have access to lifesaving vaccines. Will healthy children and adults in the US ever get access to another COVID-19 vaccine? This isn’t some vague change in health policy – this is personal.
Know Your Vax 
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