By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-03 19:46:51 | Updated at 2026-09-03 20:26:27
1 hour ago
Medical groups are recommending that many people receive vaccines against respiratory viruses this fall and winter.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends COVID-19 vaccination for all children aged 6 to 23 months, as well as children aged 2 through 18 who fall in certain categories, such as being unvaccinated or living with people deemed at high risk for severe COVID-19.
Other children aged 2 to 18 can receive a vaccine if their parents want them to, the academy said.
The American Academy of Family Physicians is advising COVID-19 vaccinations for those same children, as well as virtually all adults.
The groups are also recommending influenza vaccination for all people aged 6 months and older, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination for pregnant women, people 75 years of age and older, and people aged 50 to 74 with certain conditions such as chronic liver disease or living in a nursing home.
Also, children aged from zero to 19 months should generally receive RSV vaccination, according to the new advice, if their mother did not receive an RSV vaccine during pregnancy.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is recommending pregnant women receive vaccines against COVID-19, flu, and RSV, as it has done before.
The recommendations come ahead of the virus season, which runs through the fall and winter.
The recommendations were based on effectiveness, including estimates that flu vaccines were 16 percent to 53 percent effective in late 2024 and early 2025.
The organizations represent doctors and accept money or donations from vaccine manufacturers.
The Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s parent agency, did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
The CDC, with assistance from its vaccine advisory panel, usually updates vaccine recommendations regularly, including ahead of the virus season.
In January, the CDC announced a new schedule that narrowed recommendations for COVID-19 and influenza vaccination, among others.
A federal judge blocked the update, determining officials did not take proper steps before announcing it. The order has prevented the CDC’s vaccine advisers from meeting.
An appeal is ongoing.
The CDC website says that “because of legal uncertainties and inquiries,” its recommendations for influenza vaccines are for annual vaccination for all people aged 6 months and older, instead of the updated advice. Its page on COVID-19 vaccines has not been updated this year.
Federal regulators just approved new COVID-19 vaccines without human data. The CDC would normally decide which people should receive the vaccines following new approvals, absent the court order.
The CDC recommends pregnant women receive flu vaccines and RSV vaccines, but not COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which does not accept pharmaceutical funding, said that RSV vaccines are so new that there has not been enough time to assess them.
Orient told The Epoch Times in an email that the influenza vaccine “is generally not very effective, and has a high incidence of adverse effects.”
And she said that COVID-19 vaccines also have troubling adverse reactions, and that there are effective treatments for COVID-19, such as repurposed drugs.
