Monday, September 15, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.
Special edition.
65 or over or immunocompromised and living in the United States? Get your Covid vaccine before September 18.
Get your Covid vaccine before the crazies change the rules and you can’t get it at all.
Here is why.
From Dr. Leana S. Wen in the Washington Post -
The FDA has limited vaccine approval to people 65 and older and younger individuals with certain medical condition.
[Still at] least 18 states and D.C. require an official recommendation from the CDC before pharmacists can give the covid shot.
The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee is scheduled to meet Sept. 18 and 19 to discuss it, but it’s anyone’s guess as to what will transpire at that meeting. The committee members are all new, having been put into place after previous experts were summarily fired by Kennedy. At least two people who have long-held negative views about the coronavirus vaccine are tasked with “reviewing” their safety.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), chair of the Senate’s health committee, has urged for the mid-September meeting to be “indefinitely postponed” following the abrupt termination of the CDC director last week.
The CDC could clear up this confusing patchwork by issuing a straightforward endorsement of the updated covid shot for everyone covered by FDA’s approval. In that case, heathy younger people would need to convince doctors to prescribe and pharmacists to dispense off-label, but at least older people and those with underlying conditions would regain the access they previously had. But the CDC could just as easily move in the opposite direction by adding new restrictions.
For instance, it could raise the eligibility age, recommending the vaccine only to those 75 and older. It could narrow the list of qualifying factors to the most severe medical conditions, such as advanced heart, lung and kidney disease or severely compromised immune systems. It could require documentation that a patient discussed risks with their provider or shift its language from a straightforward recommendation to shared decision-making, which could alter insurance coverage. > Any of these changes would increase confusion and sow chaos. Many medical practices and pharmacies might simply stop offering the vaccine.
Those that continue could set their own rules, resulting in a disjointed system. People who want the vaccine would face an ever-increasing series of hurdles. Those already hesitant would likely forgo them entirely.
The situation is still evolving, and the CDC still has an opportunity to make the right call. Its decision will determine how prepared the country is for covid this season, ultimately measured in terms of how many Americans end up hospitalized or die.