FDA Shut Out Its Own Experts in Approving Another Booster Shot
The Food and Drug Administration bypassed its own experts in approving a fourth dose of vaccine for Americans 50 years and older last week, despite many of its vaccine experts being skeptical about the need for another booster shot and unsure about its safety.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the FDA’s advisory committee on vaccines never met prior to the approval of another booster shot. The Journal’s Dr. Marty Makary says the advisory committee meeting this week is “like having lawyers present arguments to a judge who’s already issued a verdict.”
Several members of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee made their thoughts known to different media outlets.
Eric Rubin, editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, sits on the advisory committee. He told CNN last month that he hadn’t seen enough data to determine whether anyone needs a fourth dose whose immune system isn’t seriously deficient.
Another committee member, Cody Meissner, agrees. Dr. Meissner, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Tufts Children’s Hospital, told me last week that the fourth dose is “an unanswered scientific question for people with a normal immune system.”
A third member of the committee, Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Atlantic that he advised his 20-something son to forgo the third shot, which the FDA recommends for everyone 12 and over. – READ MORE
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