The Biden administration just got a shot of rejection today. Food and Drug Administration’s panel formally rejected a Biden plan for COVID boosters for most of the general public. Those who are 60 and older might be approved for a booster shot, but the experts were clear: the data is simply not there for most Americans. Also, the vote wasn’t even close (via CNBC):
BREAKING: FDA panel votes against approving a Pfizer booster dose for COVID-19, weeks after President Joe Biden promised all Americans would be able to get boosters beginning in late September.
— Dylan Housman (@Dylan_Housman) September 17, 2021
The vote wasn't close. I'll have to go back to double-check the count, but it was at least a 2-1 or 3-1 ratio against.
— Dylan Housman (@Dylan_Housman) September 17, 2021
Several members of the panel essentially expressed the idea that yes the data is good for boosters for the elderly, but we can't extrapolate that data all the way down to people 16 and older. The failed vote would've approved the shot for everyone 16 or older.
— Dylan Housman (@Dylan_Housman) September 17, 2021
An influential Food and Drug Administration advisory committee on Friday rejected a plan to administer booster shots of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to the general public, saying they needed more data.
The panel, however, could still clear the shots for older populations. Scientists continued debating the need for a third dose of the vaccines for people 60 and older after their initial vote, leaving open the possibility of other votes.
The nonbinding decision by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee comes as the Biden administration has said it wants to begin offering booster shots to the general public as early as next week, pending authorization from U.S. health regulators. While the agency hasn’t always followed the advice of its committee, it often does. A final FDA decision could come in a matter of hours. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has scheduled a two-day meeting next week to discuss plans to distribute the third shots in the U.S.
[…]
In a paper published days before the advisory committee meeting, a leading group of scientists said available data showed vaccine protection against severe disease persists, even as the effectiveness against mild disease wanes over time. The authors, including two high-ranking FDA officials and multiple scientists from the World Health Organization, argued Monday in the medical journal The Lancet that widely distributing booster shots to the general public is not appropriate at this time.
I’m sure Dr. Anthony Fauci disagrees. If he does, then he’s anti-science. He’s attacking science. The boomerang has finally hit the clown who chucked it in the first place. The science says wait, Joe. Are you going to go against this? We’ll have to wait for his answer since he’s taking some vacation time off. Blowing up a family and trying to pass that off as an ISIS-K kill in Afghanistan really took a lot out of him.
UPDATE: FDA panel approves Pfizer booster for those 65 and older and high risk.
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) September 17, 2021