(Adds background in paragraphs 3, 7-9) Oct 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. CDC on Monday pulled broad support for COVID-19 shots, saying they should be administered through shared decision-making with a healthcare provider in accordance with recommendations from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s hand-picked vaccine advisory panel. The new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation maintains access for the shot through health insurance. The recommendations come at a turbulent time for the CDC, which recently saw the ouster of its former Director Susan Monarez after resisting changes to vaccine policy advanced by Kennedy. Monarez said she was told to rubber-stamp the committee's recommendations without reviewing the scientific evidence. The acting director of the CDC, Jim O'Neill, also signed off on the advisers' recommendations against use of the combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella vaccine before the age of 4 years. Instead, shots will be given for measles-mumps-rubella with a separate vaccine for varicella, commonly known as chickenpox. The immunization schedules will be updated on the CDC website by Tuesday, the agency said. Kennedy, a long-time anti-vaccine crusader before taking on the nation's top health post, has sought to rewrite the country's immunization policies through a series of far-reaching actions. They included dismantling the national vaccine advisory board of outside experts and reconstituting it with hand-picked members, many of whom shared his opposition to the widely used COVID vaccines. The panel made its recommendations at a two-day meeting in September that highlighted deep divisions over the future of the U.S. immunization schedules under Kennedy. Several medical experts warned that presentations at the meeting that cast doubt on vaccine safety could lower immunization rates, even though they felt the recommendation itself had not restricted — and perhaps even expanded — access for some people. The American Academy of Pediatrics, an influential U.S. medical group, has already broken from federal policy and pushed its own vaccine recommendations, suggesting all young children get vaccinated against COVID-19. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August cleared updated COVID-19 vaccines for everyone over age 65, but limited its approval for younger people to those with health risks. The three approved COVID shots are made by Pfizer with German partner BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax with Sanofi. (Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru and Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Leroy Leo and Bill Berkrot)
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