On Sept. 19, 2025, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisers added confusion to this fall’s COVID-19 vaccinations — declining to recommend them for anyone and leaving the choice up to those who want a shot.

Until now, the vaccinations had been recommended as a routine step in the fall for nearly all Americans — just like a yearly flu vaccine.

The Food and Drug Administration already had placed new restrictions on this year’s shots from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, reserving them for people over 65 or younger ones who are deemed at higher risk from the virus.

In a series of votes Friday, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took the unprecedented step of not recommending them even for high-risk populations like seniors. Instead they decided people could make individual decisions after talking with a doctor, nurse or pharmacist.

The panel also urged the CDC to adopt stronger language around claims of vaccine risks, despite pushback from outside medical groups who said the shots had a proven safety record from the billions of doses administered worldwide.