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The CDC panel’s guidance followed weeks of internal disagreement and public debate between American health officials and consultants. In mid-August, President Biden announced plans for accelerators to become available, but scientists and regulators cautioned that there is little research into who can benefit and how doses should be distributed.
The FDA’s acting commissioner, Janet Woodcock, said Wednesday that the agency’s mandate “will allow booster doses in certain populations, such as healthcare workers, teachers, and day care personnel, grocery workers, and those in homeless shelters or prisons, among others.”
But some members of the committee said there was little evidence that vaccinated teachers or even health workers were at risk of repeated exposure to the virus. The decision reflected fears that such broad advice would effectively open the door to an all-adult support campaign.
A professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel, Dr. “In my opinion, the committee thought it was the kind of hole a truck could get through,” Paul Offit told reporters. Online briefing on Thursday.
For two days, the panel grappled with the public’s expectations for Covid vaccines, the safety of third doses, and how a support program would affect nursing home residents. Some scientists noted that booster doses alone would not reverse the pandemic: Only vaccinating the unvaccinated could.
Associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, Dr. “We can move the needle a little bit by giving people booster doses,” said Helen Talbot. But because people are not vaccinated, the hospitals are full,” he said.
Counselors also grappled with the lack of clarity about the purpose of vaccines: Should it be to prevent all infections or to prevent serious illness and hospitalizations?
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