CDC still misleading people with outdated Covid vaccine information

Despite approving a major policy shift, the CDC continues to distribute vaccine information it knows is no longer accurate — denying people informed consent.

Last year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took a decisive turn on Covid vaccination policy.

In September, its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to scrap blanket Covid-19 vaccine recommendations and replace them with individualised clinical decision-making across all age groups.

At the same meeting, the committee voted unanimously to strengthen informed consent by overhauling the Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) — the document that underpins patient decision-making at the point of vaccination.

The message from ACIP was clear. Patients should be told, in plain language, what is known, what remains uncertain, and how risks and benefits vary between individuals.

“Informed consent is back,” said Deputy Secretary O’Neill at the time, praising ACIP for educating Americans about “important vaccine safety signals.”

That endorsement should have triggered immediate changes to the information forms used across the country.

But months later, not a single one of those changes has been made.

The most recent form, dated 31 January 2025, still presents information that no longer reflects CDC policy.

As a result, people are being misinformed at the point of care and denied one of the most basic rights in medicine — informed consent.

What ACIP voted to change

At the September meeting, the chair of ACIP’s Covid-19 vaccine workgroup, MIT professor Retsef Levi, laid out a detailed framework for what patients should be told before agreeing to vaccination.

ACIP identified at least six categories of risk and uncertainty that it agreed must be disclosed clearly and accessibly.

These included low-quality evidence for vaccine effectiveness; immune effects linked to repeated dosing; documented serious cardiac harms; prolonged post-vaccination syndromes; persistence of vaccine components in the body; and the absence of adequately powered randomised trials in pregnancy.

Prof Levi outlined changes proposed to VIS forms

ACIP voted that this information should be incorporated into patient-facing materials, and that clinicians should discuss risks, benefits, and uncertainties with patients as part of an individual medical decision—supported, not undermined, by the VIS.

What patients are still being told

Despite those votes, the current VIS continues to frame Covid-19 vaccination as a universal recommendation. It states that the vaccine is “recommended for everyone six months of age and older,” including pregnant and breastfeeding women.

What it does not say is that benefit varies sharply by risk group—or that for people who are young, healthy, or previously infected, the balance of benefit is far less favourable.

It does not tell patients that vaccination is now meant to an ‘individualised’ clinical decision in consultation with a doctor.

The document also presents certainty where ACIP has acknowledged uncertainty.

For example, it does not disclose that evidence for vaccine effectiveness is low quality, that protection against infection is limited and short-lived, or that repeated dosing may alter immune responses in ways that remain poorly understood.

On safety, the VIS reassures rather than informs.

Myocarditis and pericarditis are described as rare, with a low chance of occurring, without acknowledging fatal cases discussed at ACIP meetings or the unresolved questions around true incidence, prognosis, and long-term outcomes.

There is no reference to prolonged post-vaccination syndromes described to the committee, and no mention of persistence of vaccine components in organs.

Nor is there disclosure that Covid-19 vaccines were not tested in adequately powered randomised trials in pregnancy—despite pregnancy being explicitly included in the recommendation.

Taken together, the VIS does not merely lag behind policy but actively misrepresents the state of evidence.

Who does this affect?

Despite widespread scepticism, Covid-19 vaccines continue to be administered in large numbers.

As of early January 2026, about 17% of adults in the United States reported having received the 2025–26 Covid-19 vaccine. Among children, an estimated 7% were considered up to date.

That still translates into tens of millions of doses delivered through pharmacies and medical clinics. In late 2025 alone, roughly 18.6 million doses were administered in retail pharmacies and around 2 million in doctors’ offices.

For each of those vaccinations, the VIS remains the primary mechanism by which patients are told what they are agreeing to.

When that document contradicts current policy and omits acknowledged risks and uncertainties, consent is not informed. People are being misled.

An unresolved failure

Responsibility now sits squarely with the CDC.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the agency, was asked to explain why the VIS has not been updated, but did not respond by the time of publication.

The CDC continues to distribute a Vaccine Information Statement that no longer reflects its own approved policy or the concerns raised by its expert advisers.

Is this incompetence — or internal sabotage by career bureaucrats unwilling to implement approved agency policy?

Until the VIS is corrected, the CDC is presiding over a breakdown in informed consent — allowing misinformation by omission to persist at the point of care.

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Addendum

The problem is not limited to Covid vaccines.

Even after ACIP voted to change its guidance on the routine birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, the official Vaccine Information Statement still tells parents the vaccine is given at birth. The current hepatitis B VIS — dated 31 January 2025 — has not been updated to reflect the committee’s decision.

Once again, outdated government information is being presented as settled policy, undermining informed consent at the point of care.

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