The Trump administration appears to be expanding RSV vaccinations to some adults starting at age 50, down from 60, following the advice of a recently fired panel of government vaccine advisers.<\/p>\n
The decision appears on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage but as of Wednesday wasn\u2019t on the agency\u2019s official adult immunization schedule<\/a>. <\/p>\n RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, typically is a coldlike nuisance, but it can be severe, even life-threatening, for infants and older adults. The CDC recommends vaccination for certain pregnant women and a onetime shot for everyone 75 or older. But people as young as 60 with health problems that increase their risk can also get it.<\/p>\n In April, the CDC\u2019s influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended expanding RSV vaccination to high-risk adults as young as 50, too. But the CDC lacks a director to decide whether to adopt that recommendation and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn\u2019t immediately act.<\/p>\n Last month, Kennedy fired<\/a> all 17 members of that panel and handpicked seven replacements that include several vaccine skeptics. <\/p>\n The new panel alarmed doctors\u2019 groups last week by ignoring settled science on a rarely used flu vaccine preservative<\/a> and by announcing a probe<\/a> of the children\u2019s vaccine schedule. It didn\u2019t revisit RSV vaccination for older adults. <\/p>\n Kennedy already had taken the unusual step of changing<\/a> COVID-19 vaccine recommendations without consulting the committee.<\/p>\n