Questionable CDC Report Finding That COVID Shots Protect Children from Severe Illness
- by Marco Cáceres
- Published
- Opinion
On Dec. 11, 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that concluded that COVID-19 vaccinations are protecting healthy children from severe illness. The report, based on an analysis of the electronic records of 98,000 emergency room and urgent care by children nine months to 17 years of age during Aug. 29, 2024 through Sept. 2, 2025, found there to be a statistically significant difference between those children vaccinated against COVID and those who were not vaccinated.1 2 3
According to the study, vaccinated children aged nine months to four years had 76 percent fewer emergency or urgent care visits during the first seven to 179 days post vaccination than those in the unvaccinated group, while vaccinated children aged five to 17 years had 56 percent fewer visits than those in the unvaccinated group.1 2 3
The report states:
These findings suggest that vaccination with a 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine dose provided children with additional protection against COVID-19–associated [emergency department or urgent care] encounters compared with no 2024–2025 dose.3
Is the Report a Rebuttal to Rising Concerns About COVID Shots?
Aria Bendix of NBC News said:
The study appears to counter claims by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about the vaccines’ effectiveness and address doubts raised by other federal health officials about whether children benefit from continuing to receive COVID shots.1
Not entirely surprising, the publication of the report closely coincides with a series of revelations and studies that highlight the harmful effects of the mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) COVID shots, including the release of a memorandum by Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer and Director of U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), regarding an FDA investigation into the deaths of at least 10 children linked to the shots.4 5 6
The memo by Dr. Prasad was followed up with a prepared statement by FDA Commissioner Marty Makarty, MD, MPH alleging that the Biden administration had withheld data on the risks of heart inflammation among children and adolescents after receiving COVID vaccinations. “When a healthy kid immediately gets a COVID shot and then develops a string of complications that results in a cascade resulting in the child’s demise,” that’s causal until proven otherwise,” said Dr. Makary.5
Growing concerns within the FDA about the risks of the COVID shots sparked media reports speculating that the agency was considering a “Black Box” warning on the COVID shots. This occurred about the same time as the publication of the study in the MMWR—which reasonably leads one to wonder if the study wasn’t, in fact, generated to counter these concerns. Note that during September-October 2025, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and subsequently the CDC itself had already withdrawn their COVID vaccination recommendations for individuals six months and older.7 8
The CDC Report Denying COVID Shot Risks Has Significant Limitations
The report in the MMWR, however, is hard to take seriously. There are a host of problems with it. First of all, the report was not published in a peer-reviewed journal, but rather in the CDC’s own MMWR. An article in Forbes magazine earlier this year described the MMWR as a…
weekly newsletter from scientists at the CDC, listing deaths and diseases cases [that also] points out anything that seems a little ‘off,’ like disease outbreaks, clusters of patients with unusual symptoms, or even a sudden increase in certain types of injuries.9 10
Not exactly what you might call “evidence-based science.”9 10
Frankly, just looking at the “Limitations” section of the report tells you all you need to know about its degree of credibility. The section begins by acknowledging, “The findings in this report are subject to at least five limitations.”3 Note the words at least.
The section goes on to enumerate each of its limitations…3
- First, although case-patients met a COVID-19–like illness definition and received a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result, they might have visited ED/UCs for reasons other than COVID-19, potentially lowering VE estimates.
- Second, misclassification of vaccination status was possible, which would likely result in underestimation of VE if the misclassification was nondifferential. Previous estimates across networks including various COVID-19 vaccine history ascertainment methods (i.e., EHR, immunization information systems, self-report, and claims data) have yielded similar VE estimates (9).
- Third, children aged between nine months and four years and children and adolescents aged five to 17 years account for a smaller fraction of the general population than adults in age groups frequently examined in VE analyses (i.e., 18–64 years and ≥65 years), decreasing the sample size available for estimating VE in children and adolescents compared with adults. In addition, because of relatively low COVID-19 vaccination coverage in children compared with adults and overall lower rates of medically attended COVID-19 during 2024–2025 compared with 2023–2024, this study did not have sufficient statistical power to measure VE by finer intervals of time since dose and for hospitalization.
- Fourth, although analyses were adjusted for some relevant confounders, residual confounding from other factors, such as behavioral modifications to prevent SARS-CoV-2 exposure and outpatient antiviral treatment for COVID-19, might remain.
- Finally, low COVID-19 vaccination coverage among children and adolescents might reduce the generalizability of results.
These are not small flaws. Quite the opposite. They largely render the report’s findings scientifically inconsequential.
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