Dr. Marty Makary Shatters the Vaccine Narrative Live on CBS

He walked into enemy territory, dismantled the Pharma spin, and exposed the CDC’s inner circle with a takedown that left CBS stunned.

On Tuesday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a historic course correction from the Biden-era vaccine policy.

Standing alongside NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, Kennedy announced that COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women were officially removed from the CDC’s immunization schedule.

“Hi, everybody. I’m Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., your HHS secretary. And I’m here today with NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary. I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that, as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule.”

It was an unmistakable shift away from coercive one-size-fits-all medicine, and a clear signal that data, not politics, is now leading the conversation.

Today, Dr. Marty Makary took the fight straight into the lion’s den—appearing on CBS to dismantle the network’s go-to vaccine talking points.

When host Margaret Brennan tried to paint the updated guidance as confusing, Makary didn’t flinch.

“Can you clearly state what the policy is? Because this is confusing,” she asked.

Makary responded without hesitation: “Yeah, we believe the recommendation should be with a patient and their doctor.”

That’s when the real shift came into focus.

“So we’re going to get away from these blanket recommendations in healthy young Americans.”

“On the COVID vaccine schedule, we don’t want to see kids kicked out of school because a 12-year-old girl is not getting her fifth COVID booster shot.”

“We don’t see the data there to support a young, healthy child getting a repeat infinite annual COVID vaccine.”

He then laid out the sheer absurdity of where the old policy was heading.

“There’s a theory that we should sort of blindly approve the new COVID boosters in young, healthy kids every year in perpetuity, and a young girl born today should get 80 COVID mRNA shots or other COVID shots in her average lifespan.”

“We’re saying that’s a theory, and we’d like to check in and get some randomized controlled data. It’s been about four years since the original randomized trials. So we’d like an evidence based approach.”

And then came the knockout line—delivered with facts no one could deny.

“That is a decision between a parent and their doctor—I don’t know if you know these statistics, but 88% of American kids, their parents have said no to the COVID shot last season. So America, the vast majority of Americans are saying no.”

Brennan tried to shift gears—falling back on CDC data to argue that even healthy kids remained at risk.

“So the CDC data said 41% of children aged 6 months to 17 years hospitalized with COVID between 2022 and 2024 did not have a known underlying condition. In other words, they looked healthy,” she said.

“And COVID was serious for them.”

But Makary was ready.

Calm and precise, he dismantled the claim with surgical clarity.

“So first of all, we know the CDC data is contaminated with a lot of false positives from incidental positive COVID tests with routine testing of every kid that walks in the hospital.”

“We know that data historically under the Biden administration did not distinguish being sick from COVID or an incidental positive COVID test.”

He shared what he’s heard from the people who actually run the ICUs in America.

“When you go to an ICU in America and you ask how many people are in the ICU that are healthy, that are sick with COVID? The answer I get again, again is we haven’t seen that in a year or years.”

That’s why, he warned, making universal recommendations based on flawed data isn’t just wrong—it’s dangerous.

“And so the worst thing you can do in public health is to put out an absolute universal recommendation in young, healthy kids.”

“And the vast majority of Americans are saying, no, we want to see some data. And you say, forget about the data, just get it anyway.”

But it was the final exchange that landed like a sledgehammer.

When Brennan questioned why the HHS bypassed the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the new policy shift, Makary landed a haymaker.

“That panel has been a kangaroo court where they just rubberstamp EVERY single vaccine put in front of them.”

He said the committee hadn’t been focused on science, but on messaging and marketing.

“You look at the minutes of the last couple of years, they say, we want a simple message for everybody just so they can understand it. It was not a data based conversation. It was a conversation based on marketing and ease.”

And without real evidence, he warned, these recommendations become little more than guesswork.

“If there's zero clinical data, you're opining. I mean—it’s a theory.”

“And so we don’t want to put out an absolute recommendation for kids, with no clinical data to support it.”

The implication was unmistakable: public health decisions should be based on evidence and transparency—not rubber stamps and slogans.

For the first time in years, someone on national television was calling out the system.

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