US vaccine advisors abandon broad COVID shot support

A panel of vaccine advisors named by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on Friday said that COVID-19 shots should be administered only through shared decision-making with a healthcare provider, scrapping a broad recommendation but maintaining access through health insurance. The two-day meeting highlighted deep divisions over the future of the US immunisation schedules under Kennedy, who has long promoted claims about vaccine harms that run contrary to scientific evidence. A second COVID vote by the committee, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would have recommended that states and local jurisdictions require a prescription for the COVID vaccine. That vote failed to win a majority. The committee earlier on Friday abandoned a vote that would have delayed...