WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded pharmaceutical giant Pfizer $1.24 billion in new contracts for COVID-19 shots for both adults and children across fiscal year 2026 and 2027, reigniting questions about the Trump administration’s supposed commitment to the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda.
Awarded last month, the contracts award $505,272,000 for adult COVID-19 shots, and $735,720,598 for pediatric COVID-19 shots. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) subsequently wrote a letter seeking answers from Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya, and Acting U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Kyle Diamantas.
“The safety issues with the COVID-19 injections that the Subcommittee has uncovered so far should have raised serious concerns at HHS and CDC about the mRNA COVID-19 injections,” Johnson wrote. “Instead, CDC’s reported awarding of approximately $1.24 billion in new contracts to Pfizer for a vaccine linked to serious adverse events – including potentially the deaths of children – suggests CDC continues to fail to take its vaccine safety responsibilities seriously.”
Last week, The Hill’s Donald Slaughter warned that Republicans could pay a price among MAHA voters given ongoing ambivalence about the shots. “As of spring 2026, uptake for the COVID-19 vaccine was quite low. Nine percent of children were getting it and 17 percent of adults. Only 3 percent of parents plan to have it given to their children,” he wrote.
“A recent KFF poll found that among MAHA-supporting voters, 56 percent say health care costs will heavily influence which party’s candidate they support in November,” Slaughter added. “About four in ten say the same of vaccine policy. These are not insignificant voters; in competitive districts, they may represent the winning margin,” risking not only a shift in the balance of power but confirmation of the “narrative that the Republican establishment has capitulated to Big Pharma, that reformers have been neutralized, and that the MAHA coalition was useful during the campaign but expendable in government.”
A large body of evidence affirms both religious and medical grounds to refuse the COVID shots.
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 39,182 deaths, 222,828 hospitalizations, 22,549 heart attacks, and 29,245 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of June 26, among other ailments. VAERS submission are not proven cases on their own, but in 2022, CDC researchers recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than over-reporting.
An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published in the journal Vaccine last year “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID shots, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April 2024, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 shots, and offered several theories for a causal link. Most recently, studies published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases and International Journal of Medical Science raised the possibility of the shots carrying risks of not only respiratory diseases but even kidney injury.
On top of medical risks, many religious and pro-life Americans also object to the shots on moral grounds, due to ethical problems with how they were developed.
According to a detailed overview by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson all used cells derived from aborted babies during their COVID shots’ testing phase; and Johnson & Johnson also used the cells during the design and development and production phases. The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s journal Science and even the left-wing “fact-checking” outlet Snopes have also admitted the shots’ abortion connection, which gives many a moral aversion to associating with them.
Democrats are largely united in favor of all such shots, but the response among Republicans has been conflicted, in part due to the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative prepared and released the COVID shots in a fraction of the time any previous vaccine had ever been developed and tested, which the president has refused to disavow.
So far, Trump’s second administration has rolled back several recommendations for the shots but not yet pulled them from the market, despite hiring several vocal critics of the COVID establishment and putting HHS under the leadership of Kennedy, America’s most prominent anti-vaccine activist. The administration has largely settled on leaving the current shots optional but not supporting work to develop successors, and limiting recommendations to those in “high-risk” groups for COVID itself.
In a July 2025 interview, since-resigned FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary asked for patience from those unsatisfied by the administration’s handling of the shots, insisting more time was needed for comprehensive trials to get more definitive data. The FDA has reportedly begun acknowledging child deaths caused by the shots, but, at the same time, the Trump Justice Department has argued in court against the revival of a whistleblower’s lawsuit against Pfizer.
In February, the FDA confirmed it would be reviewing pharmaceutical giant Moderna’s application for a trial of its new mRNA-based flu shot after all, reversing its prior rejection following reported intervention from the president.