CDC is slammed for confusing and woke new guidance for winter vaccines that describes women as ‘pregnant people’

The CDC has been criticized for “terrible” new health guidelines in which it replaced the word “women” with the gender-neutral term “pregnant people.”

The deletion of the term women is reflected in the recommendations for a large number of respiratory virus vaccinations for pregnant women.

This includes material promoting vaccinations for Covid, flu and RSV – a common respiratory condition that mainly affects older adults and young children.

Although usually mild, all three viruses can be fatal in pregnant women.

DailyMail.com found that all gender-specific terms – including 'she', 'her', 'women' and 'mother' – had been omitted and gender-neutral terms such as 'pregnant people' and 'pregnant person' were used instead.

A doctors' organization said the CDC was “crouching before political forces” at the expense of sound medical advice.

Recent CDC guidance on the flu shot also refers to “the pregnant person” instead of “mother”

Stella O'Malley, psychotherapist and director of the campaign group Genspect, called the guidance 'dangerous'.

She argued that pregnant women are more vulnerable, and some groups – including those who speak English as a second language – may find the ambiguous terms confusing.

She told DailyMail.com that she was “disappointed” that the CDC “needlessly used more complicated language than necessary.”

The guideline was updated at the end of September. It said: “CDC recommends that pregnant people receive a flu vaccine by the end of October, although flu vaccination should continue while the flu is circulating.

'Getting a flu vaccine by the end of October helps protect pregnant people and their babies before flu activity starts to increase. Pregnant people can get a flu vaccine during any trimester of pregnancy.”

Ms O'Malley said: 'There was no need to replace the word 'woman' with the words 'pregnant person'. In medical matters, clarity and simplicity should be prioritized so that everyone can understand what is involved.

'Some people, especially those for whom English is not a native language, will not understand what is meant by 'pregnant people', but they would easily understand 'mothers'.

'It is a disgusting example of how politics is increasingly interfering with medicine.'

The CDC's flu vaccine guidelines, which were updated on September 7, 2023, made no mention of pregnant women and instead used the term “pregnant people.”

It's the latest example of CDC medical advice being debunked in an effort to be more inclusive of transgender people.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) said the CDC was “crouching before political forces” and claimed it is “trying to force the acceptance of an absurdity.”

DailyMail.com has reached out to the CDC for comment.

This is not the first time the agency has faced criticism for removing gender-related terms from the guidelines.

In November last year, DailyMail.com revealed that 'woman' was missing from the flu vaccine advice, which the Association of Physicians and Surgeons described as a 'purely political move'.

And in July, the agency was criticized after advocating for it trans women could breastfeed – without emphasizing the hormonal health risks for the baby.

The CDC's website replaced “breastfeeding” with “breastfeeding” — a term used to describe feeding infant milk directly from the breast by trans and nonbinary parents.

Pregnancy is the term used to describe when a fetus develops in a woman's uterus.

Trans men who were born female can sometimes become pregnant if they choose to keep their reproductive organs.

Former Trump administration official Roger Severino, former head of the Office for Civil Rights within Health and Human Services, told DailyMail.com that the vocabulary switch was the CDC pandering to “wokeism” and was “offensive to women.”

The CDC “is literally trying to erase the concept of what it means to be a woman, which is extremely anti-science,” he said.

“It's extremely anti-science, because where the biological reality of men and women matters most is in the health sciences and medicine, and to politicize it… insults science and common sense.

'There is no medical reason to change fundamental scientific terminology.'

What worries some health experts is that flu and Covid vaccines are especially important for pregnant women, as they are at much greater risk of serious illness.

Being pregnant can weaken the immune system, causing women to end up in the hospital more often if they get the flu.

A 2019 study found that pregnant women are seven times more likely to be hospitalized if they contract the virus.

The infection has also been linked to premature labor and birth defects, making a flu vaccine essential for expectant mothers.

Furthermore, studies have shown that Covid caused a 40 percent increase in deaths among pregnant women, due to their extreme vulnerability to the virus.

But muddled language in the guidelines could cause confusion about who should get the vaccine.

Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the right-wing Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), told DailyMail.com: 'TThe CDC is supposed to be an apolitical bastion of science, but here they cower before political forces, a small minority but very influential entities, who try to change the language, Orwellian style, to deter the acceptance of an absurdity force.

'All pregnant people are women. A trans man is a woman who tries to change her body to resemble that of a man. She is endangering her baby's health when she takes testosterone. The CDC should warn about this.”