FDA Finally Ends Emergency Use Authorization For COVID-19 Vaccines

So many abuses during the COVID-19 pandemic were enacted and excused under the guise of "emergency use." 

We must suspend civil liberties, close businesses, penalize people for refusing to wear masks (even though masks don't work), shut down necessary medical care, and keep kids home because of the endless COVID emergency. No amount of data would convince politicians like Joe Biden or Gavin Newsom to acknowledge that years of "emergency" is an insane, unjustifiable abuse of power. 

Years later, the United States and most of the Western world are still dealing with the fallout of those policy decisions. Stimulus bills, justified because of the "COVID emergency," contributed to rampant, runaway inflation that continues to harm international economies in late 2025. Masks are now a permanent part of life for some misled individuals, with hospitals in extremist states like California continuing mask mandates indefinitely. 

Then there's the COVID vaccines. One of the most prominent examples of "emergency use" becoming an oft-relied-upon crutch, COVID vaccines were released under "emergency use authorization (EUA)." And while some full approvals were eventually issued, most members of the public likely assume that nearly five years after the initial release of COVID vaccines, and with any pretense of an emergency long since over, the EUA would have ended.

They'd be wrong.

Ashish Jha, White House Covid-19 response coordinator, from left, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Vivek Murthy, US surgeon general, and Xavier Becerra, secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), listen as US President Joe Biden, not pictured, speaks before receiving a booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine targeting the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Photographer: Al Drago/Pool/Sipa USA

COVID Vaccine Emergency Use Authorization Finally Ending

In an X post on Wednesday afternoon, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the FDA and federal government are finally ending the emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines. In August 2025.

"I promised 4 things," Kennedy said.

"1. To end COVID vaccine mandates. 2. to keep vaccines available to people who want them, especially the vulnerable. 3. to demand placebo-controlled trials from companies. 4. to end the emergency.

"In a series of FDA actions today we accomplished all four goals. The emergency use authorizations for Covid vaccines, once used to justify broad mandates on the general public during the Biden administration, are now rescinded. FDA has now issued marketing authorization for those at higher risk: Moderna (6+ months), Pfizer (5+), and Novavax (12+). These vaccines are available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors. The American people demanded science, safety, and common sense. This framework delivers all three."

He then went on to thank FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for his leadership. 

This has been a long time coming. As Kennedy explains, emergency use authorization was used to justify a laundry list of abuses and indefensible policies, particularly the obsessive focus on federal and corporate vaccine mandates, and the desire to force parents into getting their babies and toddlers vaccinated. 

The new policy will be that all three vaccines will be only for "higher-risk individuals," including those over 65 or with elevated risk factors that could lead to more severe complications. Sanity, at last.

Most importantly, this change will limit COVID vaccines for young children. Because of the EUA, availability for children as young as 6 months old was more widespread. But now that the EUA is removed, it reinforces that healthy children under the age of 5 do not need the vaccines, particularly with the elevated risk of side effects for younger age groups relative to the virtually nonexistent risk level for healthy children.

These changes don't undo the damage that was caused by extremist policies under the Biden administration and at a state level. But it's a first step in undoing the unnecessary policies that have been excused by an unlimited, endless emergency. The media and their "expert" partners will be furious. Good.