The move ends the CDC’s booster recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women, bypassing norms

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, announced that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would remove Covid-19 booster shots from its recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women.

Legal experts said the Trump administration appointee’s decision, which Kennedy announced on social media, circumvented the CDC’s authority to recommend such changes – and that it is unprecedented for a health secretary to unilaterally make such a decision.