The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disregarded the advice of the agency’s vaccine advisory committee, clearing the way for healthcare workers, teachers, and residents of long-term care facilities, homeless shelters and prisons to get a third Pfizer COVID shot.
In an “unusual move,” the director of the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday overruled a recommendation by the agency’s vaccine advisory committee to limit Pfizer’s COVID booster shot for people 65 and older, long-term care facility residents and certain people with underlying conditions.
Instead, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky aligned with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authorization of a third dose of Pfizer’s vaccine for a broader population, including healthcare workers, teachers and others whose jobs put them at “high risk” of infections, plus residents of prisons and homeless shelters.
President Biden today acted on the news, announcing his administration will begin to deliver booster shots this week, Politico reported.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Thursday voted unanimously to approve Pfizer’s booster shot for people 65 and older, long-term care facility residents and certain people with underlying conditions, with the third shot to be administered at least six months after the second dose.
But the ACIP panel voted against recommending a booster dose for people whose jobs or situations put them at high risk of vaccine breakthrough infection.
In a similar scenario, the FDA on Wednesday granted Pfizer extended Emergency Use Authorization for boosters for people 65 and older and those at higher risk of severe disease and death, as well as frontline workers at higher risk of breakthrough infections — even though last week, the agency’s safety panel had rejected, in a 16 – 2 vote, Pfizer’s application for boosters for the general population.
In opposing Pfizer’s application, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee cited a lack of long-term data and said…
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