In a significant shift this week, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., joined by FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin McCarrie, and NIH Director, Dr. J. Badacharya, announced that COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant individuals.

That sparked concerns from some public health officials and medical professionals.

But Commissioner McCarrie has defended the new guidelines, and he joins us now to discuss that and other major health news.

Commissioner, welcome to the news.

Good to be with you, Amna.

Thanks for being here.

So let's start with that vaccine announcement.

As you've heard, some people say this was an end run around CDC that doesn't currently have a permanent director.

There's an advisory council on vaccinations that usually weighs in on these decisions.

They are scheduled to meet in late June.

Why not wait for them to meet before making any kind of announcement?

So most of America has said no to the COVID booster last year.

About 85% of health care workers refused the COVID booster last year.

And very few children are getting the COVID booster.

For 88% of children, their parents said no to the COVID booster.

So we can't have this huge disconnect.

And the reality is people want to either see more data or they have some concerns.

And so we need to provide that data for the public to make the case.

Right now, when we walked, came into office, there was this absolute universal recommendation at the CDC.

And so the secretary consulted with a number of physicians and decided that he wanted to turn

that decision back to a physician and the patient. And we would be more in line with Europe. Because

in the UK, for example, they only recommend the COVID booster if you're 75 years of age and

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