A highly respected immunology expert with the FDA and the NIH warns healthy young people not to get COVID-19 boosters, saying that “There’s not clear evidence of benefit” versus the potential risks!
Paul Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), working group on vaccines, and a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC). Previously, Offit was a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
That is quite a long list of respected and legitimate credentials. Offit is also one of the few vaccine experts voicing caution regarding the new COVID boosters.
On Aug. 31, the FDA granted emergency use authorizations (EUAs) of COVID-19 boosters from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. However, Offit is advising healthy young people to skip the new booster shot.
During a recent appearance on CNN, Offit said that those over 65, the immuno-compromised, and anyone with serious chronic health ailments could benefit from the boosters. But, he expressed concern that government health agencies were going to try to oversell the booster to everyone.
“What I fear is that they’re going to say everybody should get it when in fact, the healthy young person really is unlikely to benefit from the booster dose, and so I hope they targeted more specifically, to those really who are most likely to benefit from this additional dose,” he said during the CNN interview.
The CNN anchor was perplexed that the health official didn’t recommend everyone get the new jab.
She asked the vaccine expert, “Why not get it? Right? If it does give you, even if it’s a smaller benefit, is there any reason not to get the booster?”
Offit replied, “I think that when you’re asking people to get a vaccine, I think there has to be clear evidence of benefit, and we’re not going to have clinical studies before this launches.”
The booster shot was authorized by the FDA despite not having been tested on humans, which is what troubled Dr. Offit.
“You’re asking people to get a new product for which there’s no data,” Offit said. “Mice data are not adequate to launch 100-plus-billion-dose effort.”
1 comment
So the agencies making decisions have totally challenged what was always accepted as a proper way to decide if a pharmaceutical treatment was safe and effective. So much for science. This makes it difficult to trust their methods. Since when have we become “the test?” It’s no wonder that So many people are vaccine hesitant.
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