Mainstream media have joined prominent doctors in questioning the FDA for its reliance on animal studies to approve so-called COVID-19 boosters for ages 12 and up, even as the shots are already being forced on low-risk, "fully vaccinated" populations such as college students.
The Mercury News emphasized that bivalent booster "studies about efficacy, so far, have only been completed in mice."
- CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the feds didn't have time to wait on human data.
- This shows midterm elections are behind the rush to approve boosters, University of California San Francisco epidemiologist Vinay Prasad tweeted. Unless agencies are "firewalled" from politics, the feds will "approve anything to lower cases right before the vote" regardless of safety concerns.
Bottom Line
- COVID was the main factor in life expectancy falling from 77 years in 2020 to 76.1 years in 2021, according to Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
- Other factors, including drug overdose and suicide, were "probably related to the pandemic, but not directly to the virus."
- It's not clear bivalent boosters would reverse or mitigate that trend, however.
The FDA isn't explicitly claiming the new boosters actually reduce severe outcomes.
- The agency cited clinical studies of each vaccine maker's Omicron BA.1 bivalent, which found "better... immune response" from the bivalent than the single-strain booster.
- While the agency claims the evidence is enough to approve BA.4/5 boosters "because these vaccines are manufactured using the same process," Prasad said this was like equating pizza and cake because they are made "in the same oven."
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