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FDA Proposes Annual Covid Boosters for Americans

by Will Jones
24 January 2023 3:01 PM

Americans may be offered a single dose of a Covid vaccine each autumn, much as they are given flu shots, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Monday. Not all FDA advisers are happy about the plans, however. The New York Times has the story.

The proposal took some scientists by surprise, including a few of the FDA’s own advisers. They are scheduled to meet on Thursday to discuss the country’s vaccine strategy, including which doses should be offered and on what schedule.

“I’m choosing to believe that they are open to advice, and that they haven’t already made up their minds as to exactly what they’re going to do,” Dr. Paul Offit, one of the advisers and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said of FDA officials.

There was little research to support the suggested plan, some advisers said.

“I’d like to see some data on the effect of dosing interval, at least observational data,” said Dr. Eric Rubin, one of the advisers and editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. “And going forward, I’d like to see data collected to try to tell if we’re doing the right thing.”

Still, Dr. Rubin added, “I’d definitely be in favor of something simpler, as it would make it more likely that people might take it.”

Only about 40% of adults aged 65 and older, and only 16% of those five and older, have received the latest Covid booster shot. Many experts, including federal officials, have said that the doses are most important for Americans at high risk of severe disease and death from Covid: older adults, immunocompromised people, pregnant women and those with multiple underlying conditions.

In its briefing documents, the FDA addressed the varying risks to people of different ages and health status.

“Most individuals may only need to receive one dose of an approved or authorized Covid-19 vaccine to restore protective immunity for a period of time,” the agency said. Very young children who may not already have been infected with the virus, as well as older adults and immunocompromised people, may need two shots, the documents said.

But some scientists said there was little to suggest that Americans at low risk needed even a single annual shot. …

The FDA advisers said they would like to see detailed information regarding who is most vulnerable to the virus and to make decisions about future vaccination strategy based on those data.

“How old are they? What are their comorbidities? When was the last dose of vaccine they got? Did they take antiviral medicines?” Dr. Offit said. At the moment, the national strategy seems to be, “‘OK, well, let’s just dose everybody all the time,’” he said. “And that’s just not a good reason.”

According to the FDA’s suggested plan, officials would choose the annual vaccine’s composition each June, targeted to fight whatever variant is circulating.

But this year, the booster was quickly outpaced by newly evolved variants. It might make more sense to develop vaccines that target parts of the coronavirus other than the so-called spike protein, which changes less frequently, some researchers said.

Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease physician and senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said that the plan makes no sense as most people are “well protected against severe Covid disease with a primary series and without yearly boosters”.

“This makes no sense, based on what we’ve learned from the current bivalent vaccine and imprinting. Why not switch to a monovalent Omicron vaccine?” she added.

The FDA advisers said they hoped the meeting on Thursday would allow for robust discussion of such questions. But Dr. Gounder was sceptical. The voting questions “are framed in such a way as to force a certain outcome,” she said.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: AmericaBoostersCOVID-19FDAPaul OffitVaccine

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32 Comments
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GlassHalfFull
GlassHalfFull
3 years ago

In many cases antibodies slowly disappear after about 5 months.
Memory B and T cell immunity can last a lifetime.
Some people still have T cell immunity from SARS over 18 years ago.
One woman was reported some years ago to have T cell immunity from the Spanish Flu 80 years later.
Natural immunity is preferable to an experimental jab.

81
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SilentP
SilentP
3 years ago

This is relevant:

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/08/22/microbiologist-explains-covid-jab-effects.aspx?ui=1fb065e0c4152b58bd4ed94cf29c7cbfad40307fb723460ddabacd55f3c58b0c&sd=20210518&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20210822&mid=DM965495&rid=1241802876

4
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wendy
wendy
3 years ago

The data could be used to “inform the ongoing approach to the pandemic and give further insight into the effectiveness of vaccines on new variants,” DHSC said.

This sentence gives me the impression most people testing positive currently are those who have been vaccinated! Every day I hear of yet another person with both vaccines (AZ) who has got covid with symptoms and gone on to test positive.

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-2
NonCompliant
NonCompliant
3 years ago
Reply to  wendy

You can view all the data and numbers in the latest technical briefings here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201

For the past 10 weeks only 10% of cases in over 50’s were unvaccinated which roughly corresponds to the uptake lol.

In under 50’s as the number of unvaccinated diminishes so does the percentage of unvaccinated testing positive, down from 64% to 52%.

Oh dear Boris !!

18
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wendy
wendy
3 years ago
Reply to  NonCompliant

Ah, thank you for the figures.

6
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TheBigman
TheBigman
3 years ago
Reply to  NonCompliant

Where do you get these figures

0
0
Julian
Julian
3 years ago

This is exactly what we need – another government testing programme. All their testing and monitoring programmes so far have been such a great success, and have gathered meaningful, useful date that has been analysed honestly and used to inform a rational, evidence based response to covid.

Back in the real world, any (probably meaningless) data gathered will be used or ignored or distorted in order to fit political agendas.

43
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chris c
chris c
3 years ago
Reply to  Julian

They have however gathered meaningful, useful money. This is more of the same.

0
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
3 years ago

And the point of all this is ?

13
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amanuensis
amanuensis
3 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

Thus the point of it is to find that a %age of those infected with covid don’t develop antibodies.

Thus they can say that natural infection isn’t great, because some (many?) don’t develop antibodies.

But note that they’re not testing after vaccination — where there are also a certain proportion that don’t develop antibodies. They’d prefer that people not know this.

The results of this are broadly known, although the MSM don’t seem to want to report this — the majority of older people develop antibodies after infection (>95%), but the proportion decreases with decreasing age, to the point where young children are relatively unlikely to make antibodies (as low as 20-30%).

So, the point of it (in the end) will be one of:

  • Children don’t develop antibodies, and we know that viruses hate antibodies, therefore they all need to be vaccinated. Queue here please.
  • Shock horror — it isn’t all about antibodies. Therefore we don’t need to worry about the studies that’ll come along (sooner or later) that show that ‘too high’ a proportion of those vaccinated don’t make antibodies, or that antibodies are waning rather rapidly 6 months post vaccination

Which one of those two situations applies will depend on the pressure on the authorities (they’ll know already, but they’re certainly not going to tell us that).

16
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amanuensis
amanuensis
3 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

I’d note also that some weird stuff is going on at the moment:

  • We’re being told Delta is bad.
  • And they’re starting booster shots
  • But people are being told that they’re only for the vulnerable.
  • And might not be for the non-vulnerable.
  • And they’re jabbing children now — but only with one dose. The evidence is that a single dose of vaccine offers rather puny benefit against infection/transmission/hospitalisation/death.
  • There was also the BBC article last Friday about how natural immunity is fine (not inferior to vaccine immunity), that there’s also cellular immunity as well as ‘antibodies’, and that it might be best to have the population getting covid in the end (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098). This won’t be a ‘accidental release’ as some suggest — this will be done as part of the propaganda machine’s work.

I have a suspicion that ‘something has happened’ and this has resulted in the authorities shying away from a universal third jab. Thus they’re having to put out feelers to people to say ‘don’t worry, it won’t be needed for you.‘.

The question is why? I don’t know the answer to this, but I’ll suggest:

  • Their data is showing ADE starting to be a problem. They don’t want to make this worse with a third dose.
  • There’s an increase in anaphylaxis after the booster, due to sensitisation to PEG after the earlier doses. This could be masked in the elderly (higher background death rates), but not so easily in the younger population.
37
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divoc origi 19
divoc origi 19
3 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

I saw the BBC article too and was quite surprised… although like you, once you realise that there is a reason for it being there, you start the question the motive. I am guessing that the narrative will shift to be that the most robust protection will be vaccination PLUS natural infection for those that are not in the most vulnerable categories.

11
0
Lilacblue
Lilacblue
3 years ago
Reply to  divoc origi 19

Yes, that article is there for a reason, there will be something behind it. Interesting to see how this plays out in the media.

8
0
Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
3 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

Join an unpaid research project so that pharma can make more profit.

4
0
Smelly Melly
Smelly Melly
3 years ago

That magical money jungle keeps on giving.

15
0
helenf
helenf
3 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

Yep, and some people are making shit loads of money from this scam

2
0
Stephensceptic
Stephensceptic
3 years ago

I strongly believe that the true understanding of this disease is very shaky.

The current priest class of scientists collectively are no better informed in reality than Medieval soothsayers finding witches and heresies everywhere.

15
0
helenf
helenf
3 years ago

They are collecting your dna, folks

14
0
ebygum
ebygum
3 years ago

I just think it’s more psy-ops smoke and mirrors.
Is there solid scientific evidence that antibodies will make people immune or offer protection from Covid-19…. if so how are they becoming re-infected?
Surel cross-reactivity is a major challenge for Covid-19 antibody tests as there are six, I think, other Coronaviruses known to infect humans?
This is even if you believe the PCR detects anything real in the first place!?
Nope, just something else with which I WILL NOT COMPLY!

12
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  ebygum

Why do these simple things have to be reiterated so many times? People get reinfected because the immune system counteracts infections. It can’t prevent them.

Granted, in the silly corona universe, where every harmless infection is sufficient to set the whole, idiotic machinery into motion, this may sound like a big thing but it isn’t. The fundamental contradiction here is that infection is assumed to be harmless to the infected but dangerous to the non-infected. Until they become infected. Then, it reverts to harmless to you but dangerous to others.

4
0
Uncle Monty
Uncle Monty
3 years ago

It’s almost as if everything Mike Yeadon wrote about on immunology last year was true after all. 🤷‍♂️
Seems Yeadon and Toby Young were only wrong in one aspect of their reading of the trajectory of Covid when they claimed last summer that Covid was over and that there would be no second wave.
We can now see that Covid has knocked flu off its perch to become the dominant seasonal respiratory disease and will in all likelihood return each year.
On balance, Yeadon, Young et al have been far more accurate in their pronouncements than Ferguson and his SAGE goons.

8
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Another ploy to keep the scam going.

The PCR is not a diagnostic tool so the results produced are meaningless. Which of course means the anti-body tests will be meaningless and let’s not forget covid has not even been proven to exist.

All in all a pile of fake science more akin to witchcraft. However, what this nonsense will provide is lots of scary headlines “proving” that we don’t produce anti-bodies after infection. What’s the betting there will be repeat follow ups just to confirm the outcome that has already been decided upon?

For an IFR of 0.15%.

More taking the P.

15
0
OnceIWasARemainer
OnceIWasARemainer
3 years ago

So, almost a year and a half after they should have started offering antibody tests they are now doing it. Making a honest tracking of how antibody levels change over time is a worthwhile study, though of course undetectably low levels does not mean that the person’s immunity has expired, only that it is sitting dormant within tissue. But one wonders why they didn’t roll out freely available antibody tests to all willing takers in around April of 2020, so we could see how many people had already had it and that we could have been unafraid even then. I would have liked to get one in about April 2020, being one of many people who suspected they had a case in the first wave, but I guess they’ve waited like this to start making the tests available because they want to make sure antibodies from earleir waves have diminished beyond detectability so they won’t have people realising that the population was largely immune by the end of wave 1.

6
0
JohnK
JohnK
3 years ago

Well, it’s a strong whiff of obsession, and commercial opportunity as a result. Worthwhile public expenditure? I doubt it.

2
0
Zoomer@14
Zoomer@14
3 years ago

Another disgusting pharmaceutical money spinner… we just keep allowing them to wring this out indefinitely.

3
0
TheBigman
TheBigman
3 years ago

Seeing as the test will always give a positive result given enough tests done I imagine these results are just another means to obfuscate the details further.

If a PCR comes back with a false positive then chances are that the person won’t have any antibodies, if they never had it why would they, and as a result based off these two tests new policies restricting your life in some way will be born.

What happened to the original thoughts touted at the beginning of this charade: Everyone will get it at some point and the “overwhelming majority” will have very little or “mild” symptoms.

By now we could all have had it and all be getting on fine.

Why anyone can think this is all just by accident and mismanaged I don’t know.

1
0
davews
davews
3 years ago

I had an antibody test as part of the Biobank program, after I had received both my AZ jabs. It was negative, make of it what you want.

1
0

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