A first person to know about the vaccine advised healthy young people not to get the latest COVID-19 booster because “there is no clear proof of profit”.
Paul Offit is Director of the Center for Vaccine Training at the Young Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Vaccine Task Force, and FDA Consultant on Vaccines and Related Organic Commodities Member of the Committee (VRBPAC). Previously, Offit was a member of the Centers for Disease Management and Prevention’s (CDC) Immunization Practice Advisory Committee.
Offit may be one of the few vaccine advisers wary of a new COVID booster.
On August 31, the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 booster. Bivalent models of earlier vaccines require administration as a single booster dose at least two months after the first or booster dose. Moderna’s mRNA booster vaccine is FDA-approved for individuals 18 years of age and older, and Pfizer’s BioNTech model is approved for individuals 12 years of age and older.
Still, Offit advises healthy young people to skip the brand new booster.
In an interview with CNN earlier this month, Offit said people over the age of 65, those with compromised immune systems, and anyone with poor health might benefit from a booster.
He was involved in what state health officials would try to roll out the booster to everyone.
“My concern is that they might say that everyone should get it, when in reality healthy young people are less likely to learn from booster doses, so I hope they specifically target those who get the most.” Definitely can go further from this dose,” he said in a CNN interview.
The CNN host was baffled that health officials were not advocating for everyone to get a brand new vaccine.
She asked the vaccine knowledgable, “Why don’t you get it? Proper? If it helps you, even if it’s less profitable, is there any reason not to review it?”
Offit replied: “I feel like if you happen to be asking individuals to get vaccinated, there needs to be a clear proof of profit, and we’re not going to do any medical trials before the vaccine is on the market.”
Moderna has begun human trials of the booster picture, which Pfizer expects to begin this month. Consultants believe those inspections will likely not be completed until the spring.
“But you need to at least get the people you’re aware of vaccinated with this vaccine, and you’ll see a clear and dramatic rise in neutralizing antibodies, and then you’ll get safety relative to BA.Four and BA.5.” He continued.
“You’re asking people to buy a brand new product with no information about it,” Offit also told CNN. “The mouse information is often not sufficient to deliver doses in excess of 100 billion doses.”
Although it has not been tested on humans, the booster needle has been accepted by the FDA. Pfizer’s initial findings were largely based on examinations of eight mice. The FDA’s EUA approval is largely based on examination of mice, information from current COVID-19 vaccines, and previous iterations of boosters.
“If you happen to have none, if there is no clear proof of profit, then I think it would be dishonest to ask an individual to accept any threat,” Offit said. “Profit needs to be clear.”
On September 21, Offit published a comment in the Wall Street Journal titled “CDC oversells ‘bivalent’ Covid vaccine.”
“The Agency for Disease Management and Prevention recommends that everyone over the age of 12 get a ‘bivalent’ COVID-19 vaccine booster,” he wrote. “However, the evidence that only a select group of people appears to benefit does not contribute to the idea that a bivalent vaccine containing Omicron or its subvariants is better than a monovalent vaccine. The CDC overstates that the new vaccine has The danger of undermining public confidence.”
People are in no rush to get the latest booster.
The corresponding CDC information was released Thursday, estimating that 44 million people received the new booster. This number is equivalent to 1.5% of individuals eligible for injection within the United States.
Vaccination knowledgeable says young people shouldn’t get Covid boosters