The FDA Will Restrict Who Can Receive COVID Vaccines in 2025 and Beyond

As anti-vaccination figureheads and policymakers assume high-ranking positions within the president's administration, much of the public wonders about the long-term safety of the COVID-19 vaccine.

For younger adults of a certain age, including those without certain underlying health conditions, the prospect of getting an annual COVID-19 shot appears to be dwindling, if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has anything to say about it.

What, exactly, is the latest news about who still has unrestricted access to receive their annual COVID-19 vaccine, and which populations of people suddenly find themselves behind the gatekeeping arms of the FDA?

Below, we explore the FDA's latest decision on who has access to the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as the implications for others who do not fall within the FDA's newest guidelines but still wish to receive the vaccine.

According to ABC News, the FDA has declared that the only groups of people who may receive unrestricted access to the COVID-19 vaccine are adults 65 years of age and older, as well as individuals with "underlying health conditions."

Because of the idea that the COVID-19 virus will have already mutated by the time clinical trials testing the safety and effectiveness of updated vaccines have concluded, younger adults seeking free access to the COVID-19 vaccine suddenly find themselves on the outs.

“By the time you finish the trial, the strain that's out there in the community is probably long gone. So, they're basically saying, unless you're in those higher-risk groups, you can forget about getting the COVID vaccine,” Robert Wood Johnson Foundation president and CEO Richard Besser told ABC News.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), helmed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and which recently fired 10,000 employees, believes the time has passed for necessary vaccinations.

“The COVID-19 public health emergency has officially ended, and we are entering a new phase in our response to the virus," an HHS spokesperson told ABC News. "A rubber-stamping approach to approving COVID boosters in perpetuity without updated clinical trial data under the Biden administration is now over.”

According to The New York Times, individuals outside of the two groups that the FDA deems eligible to receive unrestricted access to the COVID-19 vaccine will experience a much tougher time to get the vaccine.

“The FDA will approve vaccines for high-risk persons and, at the same time, demand robust, gold-standard data on persons at low risk,” FDA leaders wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine.

As The New York Times rightly points out, this decision comes at a time when an outspoken anti-vaccination leader — RFK Jr. — assumed a prominent role overseeing the nation's health agencies. As well, a measles outbreak ravaged various parts of the U.S.

“I think that changes like this will lead to more unnecessary deaths,” New York-based physician Dr. Daniel Griffin tells The New York Times. “What they’re really doing is they’re very slowly reducing vaccination in the country,”