WV Congress members quiet on Trump's FDA restricting health-protecting COVID vaccines

“Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives,� President Donald Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social, his social media platform. “Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW.�

Trump’s observation that his administration’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overseen by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is “being ripped apart� came five days after the Kennedy-controlled Food and Drug Administration set new restrictions on who’s eligible to get COVID-19 vaccines.

The FDA is limiting COVID-19 vaccines to people 65 and older or those who are at “high risk� for severe disease. The vaccines had been available to anyone 6 months or older regardless of their health.

In a letter to The New York Times published Monday, nine previous directors and acting directors of the CDC under Democratic and Republican administrations dating back to 1977 called Kennedy’s vaccine recommendations “dangerous and unfounded.�

The former CDC leaders called Kennedy’s oversight, which included last week’s removal of Susan Monarez as CDC director less than a month after her Senate confirmation, “unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.�

Kennedy, whose confirmation as HHS secretary was supported by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, both R-W.Va., falsely claimed in 2021 that the COVID-19 vaccine was “the deadliest vaccine ever made.� PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking website, labeled the claim “Pants on Fire!�

The Trump administration’s new restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines already have narrowed access to the shots in West Virginia.

CVS and Walgreens have limited access to COVID-19 vaccines in response to the FDA’s narrowed recommendations.

West Virginia is one of 13 states in which CVS is offering COVID-19 vaccines only if patients present a prescription from an authorized prescriber, a new restriction, company spokesperson Amy Thibault told the Gazette-Mail Tuesday.

Thibault cited guidance issued Saturday by West Virginia Board of Pharmacy professional and regulatory affairs director Krista Capehart noting the FDA’s new COVID-19 vaccine approval restrictions.

West Virginia law allows pharmacists to administer vaccines based on CDC recommendations. 

Capehart noted the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to meet Sept. 18-19 and indicated she expects recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines at that time.

Capehart said she would publish a comprehensive West Virginia Board of Pharmacy immunization newsletter with that information once the meeting occurs and the CDC makes a recommendation from the ACIP meeting.

Kennedy dismissed all 17 voting members of the ACIP in June, and the newly reconstituted group includes some members who share Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stance. Established in 1964, the committee has advised the CDC on science-based vaccine recommendations.

CVS spokespeople indicated no prescription was necessary for getting a COVID vaccine in 34 states, including West Virginia's neighbors Maryland and Ohio. West Virginia is listed as requiring an authorized prescriber's prescription, along with neighbors Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

CVS pharmacies aren't administering COVID-19 vaccines in Massachusetts, Nevada or New Mexico, according to CVS spokespeople.

°Â²¹±ô²µ°ù±ð±ð²Ô²õ’ website says that COVID-19 vaccination requirements are unavailable pending approval of updated vaccines for 2025-26. Walgreens did not respond to requests for comment. 

Roughly 89% of adult COVID-19 vaccinations were administered in retail pharmacies in the 2024-25 season, according to CDC data. CVS and Walgreens are the two largest pharmacy groups in the country.

None of the spokespeople for the four members of West Virginia’s congressional delegation — Capito, Justice and Reps. Carol Miller and Riley Moore, both R-W.Va., responded to requests for comment on the FDA’s new COVID-19 restrictions or Kennedy’s oversight.

COVID vaccines estimated to save 20M lives in one year 

COVID-19 vaccinations prevented between an estimated 14.4 million and 19.8 million deaths in just their first 12 months of availability outside a clinical trial setting -- December 2020 to December 2021 -- according to a 2022 study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a peer-reviewed scientific research journal.

COVID-19 vaccination deployment prevented more than 18.5 million hospitalizations and 3.2 million deaths in the U.S. from December 2020 to November 2022, the Commonwealth Fund, an independent, nonpartisan health care research group, estimated in 2022. Without vaccination, there would have been nearly 120 million more COVID-19 infections, the group estimated, also projecting that vaccinations saved the U.S. roughly $1.15 trillion in medical costs.

Approximately 800,000 COVID-19-associated hospitalizations occurred in the U.S. from Sept. 24, 2023, to Aug. 11, 2024, the CDC reported in February — an average of 2,477 per day.

COVID-19 vaccination averted roughly 68,000 hospitalizations during the 2023–24 respiratory season, the CDC determined. COVID-19 vaccines continue to guard against severe disease and death.

West Virginia exceeded 8,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in March 2023, three years into the pandemic.

Justice backtracked on COVID-19 vaccination endorsement 

Last month, HHS announced the termination of 22 investments in developing vaccines using mRNA technology employed in COVID-19 vaccines that researchers have eyed as a promising option for treating cancer. Kennedy claimed in a statement HHS was “shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.�

The CDC has been in turmoil under Kennedy, with federal worker representatives attributing distrust in the agency and its public health mission to what they say has been Kennedy and the Trump administration villainizing them.

A Georgia man attacked CDC’s Atlanta headquarters last month, firing more than 180 shots into the campus and killing a police officer. Authorities said the man, who died by suicide, was motivated by his distrust of COVID vaccines.

“[W]hen your own leadership peddles falsehoods, it doesn’t just erode the public trust. It creates the conditions for the kind of violence that we saw [with the shooting],� Yolanda Jacobs, lead health communications specialist at CDC’s Office of the Chief of Staff and president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents CDC employees, said during an Aug. 11 virtual news conference.

“This is a time to stand in solidarity with our public health workforce, not a moment for the media to exploit a tragedy for political gain,� HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon said in an emailed statement last month.

As governor, Justice exhorted West Virginians to get vaccinated, getting his own shot live on camera in December 2020 and naming the state-funded “Do it for Babydog� sweepstakes program consisting of statewide prize drawings to incentivize COVID-19 vaccinations after his dog. Justice routinely read the ages and counties of residence of West Virginians whose deaths were attributed to COVID-19 at pandemic response briefings.

But Justice questioned the effectiveness of vaccines in a Nov. 19, 2024, media briefing after he was elected senator and then-President-elect Trump nominated Kennedy to become HHS secretary, suggesting without evidence there was new reason to doubt they have had a positive impact.

“Now we learned more, don’t we? Now we learned, really and truly, in many ways, that there’s medical knowledge that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t help much,� Justice said before adding, “[W]e saved a potful of lives.�

In their letter to The New York Times, the former CDC leaders predicted residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited health care access and low-income families will have fewer resources available to them due partly to Kennedy’s focus on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines.

The former CDC heads pointed to Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership initiated under the first Trump administration that supported COVID-19 vaccine candidates to fast-track life-saving development, as a legacy to embrace rather than destroy.

“We need only look to Operation Warp Speed during the first Trump administration,� they wrote, “as a shining example of what Health and Human Services can accomplish when health and science are at the forefront of its mission.�