Trump's team cited safety in limiting COVID shots

The agencies are narrowing vaccination recommendations, pushing drugmakers to perform costly clinical studies, and taking other steps that will result in fewer people getting protection from a virus that still kills hundreds each week in the US

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Larry Saltzman has blood cancer. He's also a retired doctor, so he knows getting COVID-19 could be dangerous for him — his underlying illness puts him at high risk of serious complications and death. To avoid getting sick, he stays away from large gatherings, and he's comforted knowing healthy people who get boosters protect him by reducing his exposure to the virus. Until now, that is. Vaccine opponents and skeptics in charge of federal health agencies—starting at the top with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — are restricting access to COVID shots that were a signature accomplishment of President Donald Trump's first term and cost taxpayers about $13 billion to develop, produce, and distribute.

The agencies are narrowing vaccination recommendations, pushing drugmakers to perform costly clinical studies, and taking other steps that will result in fewer people getting protection from a virus that still kills hundreds each week in the US. “There are hundreds of thousands of people who rely on these vaccines,” said Saltzman, 71, of Sacramento, California. “For people who are immunocompromised, if there aren't enough people vaccinated, we lose the ring that's protecting us. We're totally vulnerable.”