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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory committee on vaccines on Thursday approved adding COVID-19 vaccines to the agency’s recommended immunization schedules for both children and adults.

Despite the growing swath of evidence that the COVID-19 shots do little, if anything, to prevent the spread of the virus or serious illness ⁠— especially in younger children, a group particularly resistant to and resilient against the effects of the virus ⁠— the committee voted unanimously, 15-0, to recommend adding the shots to the schedules, which contain recommendations to physicians on which shots their patients should receive and when.

Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Wednesday to discuss the CDC schedule change before it became official. He said the move is unprecedented, and not for good reasons.

“There has never been a vaccine added to the child immunization schedule without solid clinical evidence that it reduces disease significantly in the community. The COVID vaccine in children will be the first. It will be added with no clinical data,” Makary said.

Makary said that Dr. Ashish Jha, the chief COVID adviser at the White House, has said that he has seen the clinical data, “but it’s not public information.”

“Many of us who were saying, ‘Hey, let’s see the data,’ were basically told, ‘Stop asking questions,'” Dr. Makary said. “What are they hiding? Why can’t we see this information? Instead, we’re seeing this intense paternalism to just, ‘Do what we say and stop asking questions.'”

Makary called the CDC committee “essentially a kangaroo court.”

“You have to be an official, card-carrying vaccine fanatic to be on that committee,” he said.

Several committee members stressed that they were not setting a requirement for anyone to receive the shots.

The CDC has recommended that Americans over 6 months of age should receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

Some parents and doctors who are against COVID-19 vaccine mandates have expressed concerns during public comments at the meeting and on social media that adding the shots to the U.S. CDC schedule will encourage state regulators to require them for public school attendance.

“Adding the COVID-19 vaccine to the recommended childhood immunization schedule does not constitute a requirement that any child receive the vaccine,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, an ACIP member and Director of Maine’s CDC.

Shah noted that there are currently vaccines on the schedule, such as seasonal flu shots, that are not required for school attendance in many places.

“The decision around school entrance for vaccines rests where it did before, which is with the state level, the county level, and at the municipal level,” Shah said.

The CDC stressed that the annual schedules reflect recommendations already approved by ACIP and do not reflect new policies.

On Wednesday, ACIP recommended that COVID-19 shots become part of the CDC’s vaccine program for children, which provides many types of free inoculations to millions of kids each year.

Copyright 2022 Thomson/Reuters. Additions and edits for FISM News by Jacob Fuller.