CDC Recommends COVID-19 Booster Vaccine for Group That Advisory Panel Did Not

Conservative News DailySeptember 24, 2021

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) overrode its vaccine advisory panel early Friday and said people as young as 18 who have certain jobs or living situations may get a COVID-19 vaccine booster.

The recommendation means millions of more Americans may get a booster shot, even though experts during a meeting said there was not enough data to support boosters for many younger people.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a Biden nominee, decided to reject the expert panel’s guidance and allow anybody between the ages of 18 and 64 who are at “increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission because of occupational or institutional setting” to get a booster of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

That same recommendation was voted down 9–6 during the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Thursday.

ACIP offers advice to the CDC on vaccines.

Members voted to approve three sets of recommendations on boosters, including recommending boosters for anybody 65 or older. They said seniors and long-term care facility residents, and people 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions like cancer, should get a booster. Those 18 to 49 with similar conditions “may” receive a booster, the panel also said.

“We might as well give it to everybody 18 and older. We have a really effective vaccine. And it’s like saying it’s not working. And it is working,” Dr. Pablo Sanchez, professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University/Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said during the meeting.

But many said there wasn’t sufficient data to inform the fourth recommendation.

“I really think this is a solution looking for a problem,” Dr. Jason Goldman, an assistant professor in Florida who was representing the American College of Physicians as a liaison to the panel, added later. He said the recommendation was “far afield from the data.”

CDC Recommends COVID-19 Booster Vaccine for Group That Advisory Panel Did Not 1

Dr. Sarah Long, who works in the Section of Infectious Diseases at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, noted that youth are at risk of getting heart inflammation after getting Pfizer’s shot and that the risk-benefit calculus did not seem to support boosters for many young people.

CDC presenters had told members earlier that the side effects from boosters weren’t known yet because very little data exists on third doses of messenger-RNA COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer’s.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Some members and liaisons expressed support for the recommendation, with arguments primarily centering around the perceived benefit to others that may come if people get boosters.

But the vote ultimately failed.

The CDC’s Walensky, though, went ahead with the recommendation anyways.

“As CDC Director, it is my job to recognize where our actions can have the greatest impact. At CDC, we are tasked with analyzing complex, often imperfect data to make concrete recommendations that optimize health. In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good,” she said in a statement.

“I believe we can best serve the nation’s public health needs by providing booster doses for the elderly, those in long-term care facilities, people with underlying medical conditions, and for adults at high risk of disease from occupational and institutional exposures to COVID-19,” she added.

Walensky said ACIP’s discussion and deliberation informed her recommendations.

The CDC and the nine panel members who voted against the recommendation in question did not respond to early morning requests for comment.

Walensky’s recommendation means millions of additional Americans are able to get a booster. Approximately 13.6 million seniors are able to get a third dose, CDC officials said. Numbers weren’t given for the other populations that are now being told they should or may get a booster.

The recommendation does appear to align at least somewhat with the FDA’s expanded emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s shot. The expanded authorization says people 18 to 64 “whose frequent institutional or occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2 puts them at high risk of serious complications of COVID-19 including severe COVID-19,” may get COVID-19.

All of the recommendations for boosters are only for people who have gotten Pfizer’s primary two-dose regimen. Additionally, at least 6 months need to have elapsed after the final dose.