CDC Overrides Advisory Panel To Back Booster For Americans In High -Risk Jobs

- The Guardian, Sept. 24, 2021. CDC advisory panel had only recommended boosters for elderly and some people with underlying medical conditions.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has broken with advice from its own internal advisory panel to back a booster shot of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for Americans aged 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions and adults in high-risk working and institutional settings.

The move came on Friday one day after an advisory panel to the agency did not recommend that people in high-risk jobs, such as teachers, and risky living conditions should get boosters. The panel had only recommended boosters for elderly and some people with underlying medical conditions.

Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said her agency had to make recommendations based on complex, often imperfect data. “In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good,” she said in a statement. “I believe we can best serve the nation’s public health needs by providing booster doses for the elderly, those in long-term care facilities, people with underlying medical conditions, and for adults at high risk of disease from occupational and institutional exposures to Covid-19. This aligns with the FDA’s booster authorization and makes these groups eligible for a booster shot,” she said.

The CDC recommendation follows US Food and Drug Administration authorization and clears the way for a booster rollout to begin as soon as this week for millions of people who had their second dose of the Pfizer shot at least six months ago. Bernd Salzberger, head of infectiology at Regensburg university hospital in Germany, said that given uncertainty over the durability of protection experts could easily come to different conclusions over who should be eligible for boosters and when. “The United States are currently undergoing a more severe wave of infections than here because there are many more unvaccinated in several states, mainly in the south. That could be a reason for someone to say we must protect health care workers in particular,” said Salzberger...

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/24/cdc-overrides-advisory-panel-pfizer-booster-americans-high-risk-jobs