Washington, DC – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) is convening today and tomorrow and will likely recommend Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA) for Moderna’s COVID shot in children ages 6 through 17. The committee is also considering the recommendation of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID vaccines for infants and children; 6 months through 4 years old for Pfizer and 6 months through 5 years old for Moderna.
CHD implores the FDA committee to follow the science and mounting evidence that proves there is no COVID emergency for this age group. Young children have almost zero risk of severe illness or death from COVID (99.995% recovery rate), and over 75% of US children already have natural immunity to COVID providing broad and durable protection. There is strong evidence showing that newer variants like Omicron pose dramatically reduced risks to young children. Any protection the shots may provide is short-lived, and currently, mRNA vaccines are demonstrating negative efficacy. In addition, the COVID jabs do not prevent transmission, infection, hospitalization, or death, and there is no valid evidence showing they prevent severe disease or death in children.
Since there is no logical need for children to receive these COVID injections, the risks of getting these shots far outweigh any potential benefits. Multiple studies have suggested that those who receive the jabs after infection are at an increased risk of vaccine-induced side effects such as myocarditis.
Eighteen prominent members of Congress recently wrote a letter demanding answers from the FDA regarding the safety and efficacy of COVID shots for infants and young children. CHD board chair and lead counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., also sent a letter to VRBPAC members last week warning that CHD is poised to take legal action should the EUAs be granted.
“Vaccinating young children against a virus that poses no harm to them is unethical and dangerous,” said CHD president and general counsel Mary Holland. “However, it does bring Pharma closer to its ultimate goal of getting COVID shots added to the recommended childhood vaccine schedule, which means Pfizer and other COVID vaccine manufacturers will have a captive market in perpetuity and likely never be held accountable for harm or even death to young children caused by their products.”
Total Pfizer sales from COVID jabs in 2021 were projected at $36 billion with another $29 billion for 2022. Moderna is not far behind with a forecasted $22 billion in sales for 2022.
Reports of injury and death continue to pour into the U.S. government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database. Between mid-December 2020 and June 3, 2022, 1,295,329 adverse events have been reported, including 236,767 serious injuries and 28,714 deaths following COVID vaccinations. VAERS reports for children aged 5-17 include:
- 49,283 Adverse Events
- 114 Deaths
- 457 Permanently Disabling Adverse Events
- 1,326 Myocarditis Reports
- 613 Life-Threatening Adverse Reactions
- 3,915 Hospitalizations
- 4,762 Emergency Room Visits
- 8,811 Did Not Recover From Adverse Reactions
In addition to safety concerns, preliminary data showed the Moderna shots were only about 44% effective at preventing symptomatic infection in children 6 months to 2 years old, and 37% effective in children ages 2 to 5 years old—both below the 50% level that regulators had generally called the minimum level for EUA approval in 2020. Moderna even acknowledges that “the absence of any severe disease, hospitalization or death in the study precludes the assessment of vaccine efficacy against these endpoints.”
Our youngest and most vulnerable are at greater risk from the experimental vaccines where phase III clinical trials will not be complete until 2023 for Moderna and 2024 for Pfizer. At the end of April 2022, despite the trials still being in progress and remarkably low efficacy a month earlier, Moderna announced its two-dose vaccine was 51% effective against infection in children 6 months to under 2 years old and 37% effective for those aged 2 through 5. Last month, Pfizer claimed that its three-dose series is 80.3% effective in children 6 months to under 5 years of age.
“Data on safety are non-existent and woefully incomplete given the very short follow-up time post-vaccination, and the cohort sizes are too small to pick up any real adverse events,” said CHD chief science director Dr. Brian Hooker. “There are no long-term safety studies on these genetic technologies.”