Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accepted a vote by a federal immunization panel to recommend the influenza vaccine for children, pregnant women and all adults earlier this year.
In June, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unanimously voted to recommend the 2025-2026 influenza vaccine for people aged 6 months and older.
“ACIP reaffirms the recommendations for routine annual influenza vaccination of all persons aged ≥ 6 months who do not have contraindications for the 2025-2026 season,” stated vaccine recommendations published by the CDC on Wednesday.
“With no current CDC Director and pending confirmation of a new CDC Director, this recommendation was adopted by the HHS Secretary on July 22, 2025, and is now an official recommendation of the CDC.”
This vote occurred soon after Kennedy fired all sitting ACIP members and replaced them with ideological allies.
In the same June meeting, the ACIP voted in favor of only recommending vaccines that don’t contain the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal. Vaccines without thimerosal are already widely available, with the preservative more often used in multidose vials in low-income countries.
At the time of the vote, the Department of Health and Human Services publicized that the recommendation on thimerosal had been adopted but made no mention as to whether the recommendation on flu vaccines had similarly been adopted.
The vote on thimerosal was not unanimous, with a minority of members arguing the evidence suggesting any harm from the substances was lacking and there were more important matters the ACIP could be looking into. Others argued that any actions that restrict access to FDA-approved vaccines should be avoided.
