The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ended the emergency use authorizations for Covid-19 vaccines and narrowed eligibility, excluding most healthy adults and children.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the move was driven by “science, safety, and common sense.”
Under the new rules, only Americans over 65 will automatically qualify.
Younger adults and children must now demonstrate an underlying health condition such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, or cancer that places them at higher risk for severe illness.
Kennedy’s Statement
“I promised 4 things,” Kennedy wrote on X.
“1. to end covid vaccine mandates. 2. to keep vaccines available to people who want them, especially the vulnerable. 3. to demand placebo-controlled trials from companies. 4. to end the emergency.”
“In a series of FDA actions today we accomplished all four goals,” he continued.
“The emergency use authorizations for Covid vaccines, once used to justify broad mandates on the general public during the Biden administration, are now rescinded.”
New Authorizations
The FDA issued updated marketing authorizations for at-risk groups:
Moderna — available for ages 6 months and up, with at least one qualifying condition.
Pfizer — authorized for ages 5 through 64 with at least one underlying condition.
Novavax — available for ages 12 through 64 with at least one qualifying condition.
Officials said those over 65 can continue receiving vaccines without restriction.
Vaccine History
By late 2021, more than 73 percent of Americans had received at least one Covid vaccine dose. At the time, broad mandates and emergency authorizations were used to push mass vaccination across the U.S. population.
Kennedy said the new policy fulfills his pledge to keep vaccines available to the vulnerable while ending emergency powers used to enforce mandates.
