#cody meissner

[wat3rm370n]

Marty Makary is a covid contrarian, cozy with anti-vaxxers.

Marty Makary has been making the rounds for ages on everything from CSPAN and CBS to The Ralph Nader Radio Hour. But make no mistake, there's good reason he’s welcomed into the seedy MAGA ranks of Trumpy Trumpworld. He’s just another doctor in the infect-everyone club with people along the lines of Scott Atlas.

He was part of the symposium of covid contrarians celebrating the anniversary of The Great Barrington Declaration. In 2020 he was a Fox News contributor. A while back Makary was quoted in a far-right media outlet that sells supplements, an industry some say fuels the right-wing political world, in an article that was attacking Paxlovid, dangerously and wrongly telling people not to use it for covid, for reasons that didn’t make sense. Sure, many doctors sometimes get these things very wrong. But the strange part was that Marty Makary was confusing Paxlovid with Molnupiravir, an entirely different drug, and attributing the way Molnupiravir works to Paxlovid, which is not accurate. That’s a troubling mistake to make. 

But then Makary is also a surgeon who actually mocked hand washing in a Congressional hearing, where he was brought in to testify by Republicans along with other Great Barrington Declaration natural herd immunity infect-everyone proponents. It’s odd how Trump has a reputation for germaphobia and yet two cabinet picks are actually notoriously known for anti handwashing. The other being Pete Hegseth who has such a laundry list of other things wrong with him you may have missed the handwashing thing - but that’s something that certainly stuck with me.

Marty Makary is apparently famous for the off-base factoid that medical errors are a leading cause of death even though his math doesn’t add up at all. 

In August 2021 he co-authored an anti-mask op-ed with Trumpy doctor Cody Meissner who now chants anti-vax herd immunity crap at FDA vaccine meetings.  In September 2021 he was pushing natural herd immunity, even after vaccines were available - which was essentially promoting needlessly letting babies get sick unvaccinated, a view shared with the notorious and sad Vinay Prasad, and Tracy Hoeg, someone with behaviour so unsettlingly right-wing that people only talk about some of it in private whispers.

So at some point you have to let go of the hopium that he’s some kind of moderate centrist who and both-sides things. This doctor shouldn't be normalized at all. He is NOT normal, no matter how much the media tries to manufacture mild on various and sundry Trumpy cabinet picks, or people wish-cast that nothing’s as bad as feared. Marty Markary is very much a Trumpy weirdo. And I wish people with platforms would stop being fooled, or somehow incentivized, into this truth-teller type nonsense when his math was all built on exaggerated fictions. And his opinions seem built on contrarianism.

I really wouldn’t trust this person for medical information, and I certainly don’t trust his politics.

Important Context - Everything You Need to Know About Donald Trump’s FDA Pick Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary has spent years promoting fringe pandemic views and attacking the U.S. government. Walker Bragman Nov 20, 2024 He has authored multiple books on the subject including 2019’s “The Price We Pay,” which argued that costs were simply too high. With the pandemic, he has emerged as a popular figure on the political right for his particular brand of contrarianism, which has included falsely asserting in a February 2021 op-ed that the U.S. would achieve COVID herd immunity by April of that year. Even before COVID, Makary was controversial. In 2016, he was behind a widely rebuked study in the British Medical Journal purporting to find that medical error was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Shortly after publication, the editors-in chief of BMJ Quality and Safety debunked the findings.

[madeleine-crawford-blog]

Join the Herd

Have you ever heard about herd immunity? Similar to the adage “it takes a village to raise a child...”  herd immunity takes a village to save a life.

The journal summary by H. Cody Meissner explains that herd immunity (also referred to as community immunity) occurs when a high percentage of the population is vaccinated against a virus or pathogen. When a significant portion of the population is immunized, they are able to protect susceptible individuals who have not been vaccinated and contain the spread of disease. The benefits of herd immunity are crucial to those who cannot be vaccinated including very young children, the elderly, immunocompromised individuals, and those that are too sick to receive vaccines.

However, for herd immunity to be successful, it requires a large majority of the population to be vaccinated. Seems pretty simple, right? Well, with extremely contagious diseases such as measles, herd immunity is only effective if 95% of the population have received this vaccine. This means that even in communities with vaccination rates as high as 90%, some of the most contagious diseases will spread freely and potentially take hold of our population. With the decline in immunization rates, this can become a reality.

So WHY are we seeing this vaccine cutback? Immunization rates have been steadily declining due to vaccine hesitancy and the discredited value placed on vaccines amongst our society. Vaccines are being viewed as hidden conspiracies and armies against the immune system, even though they have been extensively studied and are one of the most preventative measures of modern-day medicine.  

The truth of the matter is, vaccinations save lives. They will protect you and offer safety to your loved ones, your neighbours, and even strangers you pass by in the grocery store.  That is why it is extremely important to join the herd and share your immunity instead of some fatal disease.

[decentralvaccine]

FDA Ignores It’s Own Experts In Latest Vaccine Booster Decision

The Food and Drug Administration last week authorized Americans 50 and over to get a fourth Covid vaccine dose. Some of the FDA’s own experts disagree with the decision, but the agency simply ignored them. It will convene its advisory committee this Wednesday to discuss future vaccine needs. That’s like having lawyers present arguments to a judge who’s already issued a verdict.

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.

At the crux of the broad opposition to second boosters is the recognition of B- and T-cells, which public-health officials have long ignored. They talk only about antibody levels, which tend to decline in the months after vaccination. B- and T-cells, activated by the primary vaccine series or an infection (and augmented by a single booster in older patients), are highly and durably effective at preventing serious illness from Covid. An additional vaccine dose induces a fleeting high in antibody levels, offering only mild and short-lived protection against infection.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/fda-shuts-out-its-own-experts-in-authorizing-another-booster-covid-vaccine-pandemic-science-11649016728

[deinheilpraktiker]

EXKLUSIV: Der führende Impfstoffexperte sagt, dass der bevorstehende Novavax-Impfstoff aufgrund der einfacheren Lagerung ein Segen für die Entwicklungsländer sein und dazu beitragen könnte, Bedenken hinsichtlich mRNA-Spritzen zu zerstreuen

EXKLUSIV: Der führende Impfstoffexperte sagt, dass der bevorstehende Novavax-Impfstoff aufgrund der einfacheren Lagerung ein Segen für die Entwicklungsländer sein und dazu beitragen könnte, Bedenken hinsichtlich mRNA-Spritzen zu zerstreuen

Dr. Cody Meissner, Mitglied des Beratungsausschusses VRBPAC der FDA, ist „aufgeregt“ über die Aussichten für den Novavax-Impfstoff Es handelt sich um einen Covid-Impfstoff auf Proteinbasis, der der Grippeimpfung und anderen Impfstoffen ähnelt, die Amerikaner seit Jahrzehnten regelmäßig erhalten Meissner hofft, dass die vertrautere Natur des Novavax-Schusses einige Impfskepsis zerstreuen wird Der…

[butasformeblog]

Why Booster Shots With Same Formula As Original Vaccine Are StopGap And Not A License To Go 'Maskless'

BAFMnotes: Even With Booster, To Be Safer From Variants, People Need To Continue Wearing Masks And Exercise CDC Protocols...

"More COVID-19 booster shots may be on the way — but when it’s your turn, you’ll get an extra dose of the original vaccine formulation, not one updated to better match the extra-contagious Delta variant.

And that has some experts wondering if the booster campaign is a bit of a missed opportunity to target Delta and its likely descendants.

“Don’t we want to match the new strains that are most likely to circulate as closely as possible?” Dr. Cody Meissner of Tufts Medical Center, an advisor to the Food and Drug Administration, asked Pfizer scientists recently.

“I don’t quite understand why this is not Delta because that’s what we’re facing right now,” fellow advisor Dr. Patrick Moore of the University of Pittsburgh said last week as government experts debated whether it’s time for Moderna boosters. He wondered if such a switch would be particularly useful to block mild infection

The simple answer: The FDA last month OK��d extra doses of Pfizer’s original recipe after studies showed it still works well enough against Delta — and those doses could be rolled out right away. Now the FDA is weighing evidence for boosters of the original Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

“It’s less churn and burn on the manufacturing” to switch formulas only when it’s really necessary, said FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks.

But Pfizer and Moderna are hedging their bets. They’re already testing experimental doses customized to Delta and another variant, learning how to rapidly tweak the formula in case a change eventually is needed — for today’s strains or a brand-new one.

The tougher question for regulators is how they’d decide if and when to ever order such a switch.

[americanmysticom]

17 Pharma Henchmen Who Voted to Experiment on Your Kids — and How to Shun Them

The 17 members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee who voted 17-0 (with one abstention) in favor of authorizing Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 all have deep ties to pharma.

On Oct. 26, the membership of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted 17-0 in favor of lower-dose use of Pfizer’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11.

Dr. Arnold Monto (asmonto@umich.edu), 

Captain Amanda Cohn, M,D, (acohn@cdc.gov), 

Oveta Fuller, Ph.D. (fullerao@umich.edu), 

Dr. Hayley Gans (hgans@stanford.edu), 

James Hildreth, Sr., Ph.D., M.D. (https://twitter.com/JamesEKHildreth),

Jeannette Lee, Ph.D. (jylee@uams.edu),

Ofer Levy, M.D., Ph.D. (ofer.levy@childrens.harvard.edu),

Dr. H.. Cody Meissner (cmeissner@tuftsmedicalcenter.org),

Patrick Moore, M.D., MPH (psm9@pitt.edu),

Michael Nelson, M.D., Ph.D. (mrn8d@virginia.edu),

Dr. Paul Offit, M.D. (offit@chop.edu),

Steven Pergam, M.D., MPH (spergam@fredhutch.org),

Stanley Perlman, M.D., Ph.D. (stanley-perlman@uiowa.edu),

Dr. Jay Portnoy (jportnoy@cmh.edu),

Eric Rubin, M.D., Ph.D. (erubin@nejm.org),

Dr. Mark Sawyer (mhsawyer@ucsd.edu),

Melinda Wharton, M.D., MPH (mew2@cdc.gov)

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fda-pfizer-covid-kids-pharma/

SEE ALSO; Fully Vaccinated Are COVID ‘Super-Spreaders,’ Says Inventor of mRNA Technology LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE: THG Episode 43: Speaking Truth to Power: A Conversation with Dr. Robert Malone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28xqpV6cmcU [very good interview!] 450,000 deaths due to the policy of not providing early treatment with HCQ and IVERMECTIN

SEE ALSO; COVID-1 9 VACCINE IDENTIFIED INGREDIENTS IDENTIFIED INGREDIENTS PFIZER ASTRAZENECA JANSSEN MODERNA

[The inclusion of harmful particulates, the non-disclosure of the same, and the occasional finding of parasitic organisms suggests that the gene therapy ‘vaccine’ is fulfilling its design]

SEE ALSO; FDA Grants Emergency Use of Pfizer Vaccine for Kids 5 to 11, as Reports of Injuries After COVID Vaccines Near 840,000

VAERS data released Friday by the CDC included a total of 837,595  reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines,  including 17,619 deaths and 127,457 serious injuries between Dec. 14,  2020, and Oct. 22, 2021.

[parttimereporter]

JABS FOR KIDS

Members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee agreed that the benefits of vaccinating younger children appeared to outweigh the risks, but some members appeared troubled about voting to vaccinate a large population of younger children based on studies of a few thousand.

“It is reassuring to me that we are giving a lower dose,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Pfizer has cut its vaccine to one-third of the adult dose for the children under 12.

“I am just worried that if we say yes, then the states are going to mandate administration of this vaccine for children to go to school and I do not agree with that,” said Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine. “I think that would be an error at this time.”

[ccmirror]

CDC: Covid-19 vaccination linked to heart problems

CDC: Covid-19 vaccination linked to heart problems

A higher-than-usual number of cases of a type of heart inflammation has been reported following Covid-19 vaccination, especially among young men following their second dose of an mRNA vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Cody Meissner, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the Tufts Children’s Hospital in Boston, said “it is hard to deny that there’s some…

[wat3rm370n]

Ron Desantis sure seems anti-vax, since he chose Joe Ladapo.

Ron Desantis doesn’t have to keep Joe Ladapo as the Florida surgeon general.

I realize people think back to when Ron Desantis wasn’t so vocally against the covid vaccines and think that somehow because he’s not actually been in the media seen out hiking with RFK Jr., that must mean he’s not really anti-vax himself. But there’s no other way to describe what’s going on here.

Ron Desantis didn’t have to hire Joe Ladapo, and he doesn’t have to keep him. Joe Ladapo was in with the Great Barrington Declaration crowd from the get go, and was in the meeting at the White House — named by the U.S. Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis as having been invited by Dr. Scott Atlas in August 2020 along with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Cody Meissner. They were backing Scott Atlas who supported a strategy of “facilitating disease-acquired herd immunity” and the anti-mask policy he was advocating for was found by the Select Subcommittee to be consistent with the pursuit of that aim.

Joe Ladapo’s Wikipedia page is quite a read, saying that when he was later appointed as the Florida Surgeon General in 2021 because Desantis had liked his op-eds — “He repealed quarantine rules for schoolchildren exposed to COVID-19 as his first executive action.”

In 2022, Ron Desantis assembled a panel of scientists to serve under Joe Ladapo, to evaluate federal public health advice to make sure it’s “tailored” to Florida, and most of the panel members are connected to the Brownstone Institute — the panel included Bret Weinstein, Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Tracy Beth Høeg, and when I tried to find out what connections these people had to Florida at the time to be able to tailor public health advice to that particular state, I couldn’t find the connection, these people were mostly all in other states.

Joseph Ladapo made an unwarranted and unreal assertion that there was a study that backed up anti-vax claims of risk from covid vaccines, and some months later it was revealed that the original eight-page study, provided by the Florida Department of Health, “initially stated that there was no significant risk associated with the Covid-19 vaccines for young men” and that it was Ladapo who did edits to replace that language to claim there was. Joseph Ladapo in 2024, was still using his platform as Florida’s State Surgeon General to instruct doctors to stop recommending covid vaccines, and citing anti-vax misinformation. Ladapo also refrained from recommending measles vaccination or even isolation, during a measles outbreak in Florida

Joseph Ladapo also had gone on the podcast of former Trump official Steve Bannon, saying that the vaccines are ‘the Antichrist of all products’ associating them with the devil, and saying the vaccines are “showing “disrespect” to the human genome” — which seems to be an evocation of the “gene altering” conspiracy theories promoted by anti-vaxxers, but which have no basis in reality.

Ron Desantis has been anti-mandate. If you are anti mandate — that’s anti-vax because vaccination is a community level public health measure and a security concern. This has been the case, there have been mandates since the early days of vaccines. There have been mandatory vaccinations in the military — for what should be obvious reasons. There have been vaccine mandates in healthcare jobs — for what should be obvious reasons. There have been vaccine requirements for schools — for what should be obvious reasons. Being against vaccine mandates is anti-vax.

I’m not falling for disingenuous arguments around Ron Desantis hedging anything. Ron Desantis sometimes tries to “both-sides” climate denial too. He was quoted in the news equating people who recognize fossil fuel as having a role in climate change claiming they are just the same as the people claiming the government is manufacturing hurricanes. He said that just 5 months after he signed some bill in Florida that was full of climate denial junk. This is all both preposterous and dangerous.

[everyendeavor]

‘Breathtaking’ results’

It’s the latest case of vaccine alarmism.

Many Americans are worried that Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine is an inferior product that may not be worth getting. Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota recently told The Washington Post that he was now seeing not only “vaccine hesitancy” but also “the potential for brand hesitancy.”

The perception stems from the headline rates of effectiveness of the three vaccines: 72 percent for Johnson & Johnson, compared with 94 percent for Moderna and 95 percent for Pfizer. But those headline rates can be misleading in a few ways.

The most important measure — whether the vaccine prevents serious illness — shows the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be equally effective as the other two. All work for nearly 100 percent of people. The picture is murkier for mild cases, but they are not particularly worrisome.

Today, I want to unpack the statistics about the three vaccines and explain why the current perception is a problem.

I’ll start with an anecdote that this newsletter has included once before: Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease expert at Vanderbilt University, was recently talking with some colleagues about what they would tell a family member who could choose between getting the Johnson & Johnson tomorrow and one of the other vaccines in three weeks.

“All of us said, ‘Get the one tomorrow,’” as Schaffner recounted to my colleague Denise Grady. “The virus is bad.”

Mild Covid means victory

The headline effectiveness numbers — like 72 percent — describe a vaccine’s ability to prevent all infections from this coronavirus, known as SARS-Cov-2. But preventing all infections is less important than it may sound. The world is not going to eliminate SARS-Cov-2 anytime soon. Coronaviruses circulate all the time, causing the common cold and other manageable illnesses.

The trouble with this virus is its lethality. It has killed 15 times as many Americans as an average flu season. Turning Covid into something more like a mild flu or common cold means victory over the pandemic.

All three vaccines being used in the U.S. are accomplishing that goal. In the research trials, none of the people who received a vaccine died of Covid. And after the vaccines had taken full effect, none were hospitalized, either.

In the real world, the vaccines won’t achieve quite as stellar outcomes. Still, the results are excellent — and equally excellent across the three, as Dr. Cody Meissner of the Tufts School of Medicine said during a recent F.D.A. meeting.

Like running into the wind

But why doesn’t Johnson & Johnson appear to be as good at preventing mild illness?

There are a few possible answers. For one, Johnson & Johnson’s research trials seem to have had a greater degree of difficulty. They occurred later than Moderna’s or Pfizer’s — after one of the virus variants had spread more widely. The variant appears to cause a greater number of mild Covid cases among vaccinated people than the original virus.

Second, Johnson & Johnson is currently only one shot, while Moderna and Pfizer are two shots. That happened mostly because of how strong the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is. Initial testing showed it to deliver impressive levels of immunity after only one shot, while the others required a booster, as Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, explained to me.

The truth is that all of the vaccines seem to provide significant protection after a single shot. (Look at Britain, which is not rushing to give second shots and where cases and deaths continue to plummet.) Similarly, all three vaccines may benefit from a second shot.

I recognize that may make some people anxious about getting the single Johnson & Johnson shot, but it shouldn’t. If further data suggest that a second Johnson & Johnson shot would help, regulators can change their recommendation. Regardless, follow-up Covid shots may be normal in the future.

What’s the bottom line? A single Johnson & Johnson shot may indeed allow a somewhat larger number of mild Covid cases than two shots of Moderna or Pfizer. It’s hard to be sure. And it isn’t very important.

“The number that we should all truly care about is what are the chances I’m going to get this thing and get really sick or die,” Wachter said. After any of the three vaccines, he added, “There’s essentially no chance you will die of Covid, which is breathtaking.”

Like most Americans, I have not yet been vaccinated. As I looked into the differences among the vaccines, I’ll confess that I had a self-involved thought: Maybe the overwrought concern about Johnson & Johnson means that its shots will go begging — and I will be able to get one sooner.If so, I will say yes, without hesitation, and feel relieved.

In the meantime, I’d offer this advice to anybody ahead of me in line: If your turn comes and you are offered the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, accept what is rightfully yours. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the just as good. — David Leonhardt, New York Times 3/4/21

[jesseneufeld]

What You Need To Know About The Coronavirus Vaccine And Children

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks Dr. Cody Meissner of Tufts Children's Hospital about children and the COVID-19 vaccine.

What You Need To Know About The Coronavirus Vaccine And Children published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[edsenger]

What You Need To Know About The Coronavirus Vaccine And Children

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks Dr. Cody Meissner of Tufts Children's Hospital about children and the COVID-19 vaccine.

What You Need To Know About The Coronavirus Vaccine And Children published first on https://brightendentalhouston.weebly.com/

[stephenmccull]

Only One Vaccine Is OK for Older Teens. It’s Also the Hardest to Manage in Rural America.

As states expand covid-19 vaccine eligibility to allow shots for 16- and 17-year-olds, teens in rural America may have trouble getting them.

This story also ran on USA Today and GateHouse Media. It can be republished for free.

Of the three vaccines authorized in the U.S., currently only one can go to that age group: the Pfizer-BioNTech shot. That vaccine comes in 1,170-dose packages at minimum and expires after five days in a fridge, meaning too many doses on too tight a deadline for many rural communities to manage.

“We’re still trying to get people to accept the vaccine,” said Aurelia Jones-Taylor, CEO of Aaron E. Henry Community Health Services Center, which serves remote regions of the Mississippi Delta. “If we have to race to give out 1,100 doses in five days, that’s untenable.”

Some health experts say vaccinating children — more than a fifth of the nation’s population — is key to ending the pandemic. In the meantime, pressure is mounting to get vaccines out as health officials flag more surges of cases, this time with more contagious variants that seem to affect kids more than the initial virus strain that coursed through the U.S.

“The infection can continue to spread until we get everyone in the population vaccinated, and that includes younger individuals,” said Gypsyamber D’Souza, an epidemiologist with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The logistical challenges of eventually getting the shots to rural kids of all ages will likely continue, at least in the short term. That’s because the companies behind the sole vaccine with approval for 16- and 17-year-olds, Pfizer and BioNTech, have also been the first to seek federal approval to vaccinate younger ages after a trial showed the vaccine was effective in kids 12 through 15 years old. Pfizer spokesperson Steve Danehy said the company hopes to win regulatory approval for that age group before the start of the next school year.

For some families, the shots are so coveted that they’ll travel whatever distance it takes. Dr. Jeannette Wagner Waldron, 45, of Park County, Montana, said the closest place she was able to find a vaccine for her 17-year-old daughter, Julie Waldron, was Billings, which meant a nearly four-hour round trip to a CVS pharmacy there for the teen’s first shot.

“I’m more than willing to drive two hours to get my kiddos vaccinated,” Wagner Waldron said. “They’ve given up a lot, from their activities and seeing their friends, in order to protect people from the virus.”

Not everyone can travel that far for vaccines once, let alone twice to get both doses. Compound that with some reluctance in rural communities to get vaccinated at all. A recent KFF survey showed a larger share of rural residents — 21% — said they wouldn’t get a covid vaccine compared with urban and suburban respondents. That could mean not enough remaining demand for vaccines to use up a 1,170-dose Pfizer package in rural communities. Even if the demand exists, rural health departments may not have enough workers to administer the doses fast enough.

Karen Sullivan, health officer for the Butte-Silver Bow Health Department, said Butte will serve as the main vaccine base for 16- and 17-year-olds across five counties in southwestern Montana that together cover as much area as all of Maryland. She said she’s worried that delivering Pfizer shots to each community could risk wasting doses, but her department may make a new plan if too many people can’t get to Butte.

Health officials there have been trying to convince teenagers and their guardians the shots are safe and worth traveling for since Montana opened covid vaccines to everyone 16 and older April 1. Butte-Silver Bow’s new vaccine campaign includes sharing photos of the area’s school mascots getting the jab and raffle prizes for those who get vaccines.

“What we’re trying to do is get ahead of the variants,” Sullivan said. “We can’t get our 16- and 17-year-olds vaccinated fast enough, in my mind.”

Finding Pfizer vaccines can be challenging even in cities, which serve as medical hubs for rural communities. To help with that, some providers have set up online covid vaccine registration systems specifically for 16- and 17-year-olds, such as one through Stanford Children’s Health for clinics around San Jose, California.

In Mississippi, Jones-Taylor said her center hopes to reach kids through school-based and mobile outreach clinics. But she said that depends on either the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine, each of which have minimum shipments of 100 doses, gaining regulatory approval for minors. Both manufacturers are testing how their shots work in children.

The Children’s Health Fund, a national nonprofit, has advocated for the “continued urgent inclusion of children of all ages in vaccine trials” and for prioritizing a single-dose, easy-to-store vaccine.

Dr. Cody Meissner, a pediatrician on the vaccine advisory committee for the Food and Drug Administration, questions the rush to extend the vaccines to younger ages without more time to study potential impacts, adding that children so far have been less likely to transmit the virus or die from an infection.

The debate over whether to vaccinate younger kids as a means to end the pandemic may soon be moot, though, said Dr. Monica Gandhi, chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. She pointed to a recent study out of Israel — a nation ahead of the rest of the world in its vaccine effort — which showed that infection rates declined even without immunizing children younger than 16. That study has yet to be peer-reviewed.

“We may get to herd immunity without vaccinating all kids,” Gandhi said. “But as long as it’s a safe vaccine, the more people that get it, the more people that develop immunity, the better.”

Back in Park County, which has a population of fewer than 17,000, health officials have seen an increase in covid cases among younger people in recent weeks, some tied to middle and high school sports.

Dr. Laurel Desnick, county health officer, said the county set up vaccine clinics in high schools by working with the state and neighboring counties to split up a shipment of Pfizer vaccines, though that took time to organize. Until mid-April, the county directed 16- and 17-year-olds like Julie Waldron to a county more than 100 miles away for a shot.

“Some of our kids could do it, but not all,” Desnick said. “The further you are from a big center, the harder this gets. We’re rural, but we’re also not as remote as many of the central or eastern Montana counties, and I feel for them.”

For Ava Braham, who turned 16 two days before Montana expanded eligibility to her age, a vaccine clinic in her Park County school means she missed only 20 minutes of class to get her shot this month instead of having to drive more than 50 miles round trip over a mountain pass.

“The biggest thing for me with the vaccine is being able to see my family more often. Both of my grandparents have already gotten the shot, but I will feel more comfortable visiting them,” Braham said. “It’s sort of a moral obligation to help the whole country and the world to just get the shot.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Only One Vaccine Is OK for Older Teens. It’s Also the Hardest to Manage in Rural America. published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[diaspora9ja]

US science panel backs Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine

The US took a step nearer to approving the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Thursday, after a committee of specialists really useful that the Meals and Drug Administration grant it an emergency authorisation.

The vast majority of scientists on the Vaccines and Associated Organic Merchandise Advisory Committee agreed that the advantages of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine outweighed its dangers to be used in folks 16 years of age and older. After an sometimes heated debate, 17 members voted in favour, whereas 4 voted in opposition to and one abstained.

The vote clears the best way for a last choice from the FDA, which might come within the “subsequent couple of days”, in response to Marion Gruber, the director of the FDA’s vaccine analysis workplace.

Stephen Hahn, the top of the FDA, stated on Twitter that the company’s workers “really feel the accountability to maneuver as rapidly as potential” on the emergency use authorisation. However he added that “they know they have to perform their mandate to guard the general public well being & guarantee any authorised vaccine meets our rigorous security and effectiveness requirements”.

Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief government, stated the corporate was happy with the “sturdy majority end result” and was “prepared to carry this vaccine to folks within the US in an effort to assist fight this devastating pandemic.”

There’s numerous lacking knowledge. We don’t have good knowledge on effectiveness on the factor that actually issues, which is extreme illness

The vaccine has been authorised within the UK, Canada, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The FDA earlier this week stated trial knowledge backed up Pfizer’s assertion that its vaccine had an efficacy charge of 95 per cent on common, and started working about 10 days after the primary of two doses had been administered.

Committee members largely agreed that the information recommended the potential advantages of lastly starting to curb the pandemic outweighed the potential security dangers of administering the vaccine.

However some members raised considerations a few vary of points, together with the comparatively brief size of the human trial up to now, in addition to the potential side-effects for folks with allergic reactions or pregnant girls.

Oveta Fuller, affiliate professor on the College of Michigan’s medical college, stated: “We do not know what placing a messenger RNA-lipid vaccine [the technology used by the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine] does to folks long run — it’s not been carried out earlier than. And we’re going from 20,000 individuals who get this vaccine to hundreds of thousands who get this vaccine, with a really restricted quantity of threat evaluation.” 

Dr Fuller was one of many 4 members to vote in opposition to authorising the vaccine.

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Whereas members didn’t give causes for his or her votes, one of the contentious topics was whether or not to present the vaccine to 16- and 17-year-olds, given the shortage of security knowledge for that age group, and the very fact they’re unlikely to fall severely sick with the illness.

Cody Meissner, paediatrics professor at Tufts College college of medication stated: “There are solely 163 topics [aged 16 and 17] who’ve been enrolled within the randomised trial, and we now have heard that inflammatory response is larger in youthful folks than it’s within the aged. I believe we want extra data earlier than we take into consideration that.”

Sheldon Toubman, a healthcare lawyer on the committee, stated there needs to be extra time to gather knowledge on the opposite teams, significantly on how the vaccine protects in opposition to severe Covid-19, as a result of there weren’t giant numbers within the placebo group.

“There’s numerous lacking knowledge,” he stated. “We don’t have good knowledge on effectiveness on the factor that actually issues, which is extreme illness.”

However different members argued that the sturdy safety in opposition to gentle illness reveals it’s more likely to shield properly in opposition to severe Covid-19.

The committee examined two cases of allergic reactions seen within the UK this week. One of many folks had a previous historical past of meals allergic reactions.

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The FDA has requested Pfizer to observe for anaphylaxis — extreme allergic reactions — because the vaccine is rolled out. The regulator stated it’s in conversations with the UK regulator and is contemplating including extra recommendation on the label of the vaccine. 

Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Training Middle on the Youngsters’s Hospital of Philadelphia, warned that the hundreds of thousands of people that undergo from allergic reactions could also be delay taking the vaccine, even when there is no such thing as a actual organic drawback. 

“This situation just isn’t going to die till we now have higher knowledge,” he stated.

The assembly got here because the pandemic’s toll on the US continues to worsen, with infections and hospitalisations hovering at report highs. The nation on Thursday recorded an extra 3,067 coronavirus deaths, in response to Covid Monitoring Venture knowledge, simply at some point after crossing the 3,000-mark for the first time.

Video: How the US will roll out the coronavirus vaccine

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The U.S. is one step closer to making available another Covid-19 vaccine after a panel of experts voted unanimously Friday to recommend emergency use authorization for a shot developed by Johnson & Johnson.

The independent panel, comprised of mostly physicians, voted 22-0 to support the vaccine with no one abstaining. These votes aren’t binding on the FDA, but the agency often follows the recommendations of its panels. A decision could come as early as this weekend. The two Covid vaccines currently cleared for emergency use received their authorizations the day after their respective advisory panel meetings.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine would offer an alternative to the ones currently available from the Pfizer and BioNtech alliance, and Moderna. Those messenger RNA vaccines must be distributed and stored at ultra-cold temperatures, then thawed before use. Those shots are given as two doses, weeks apart. The J&J vaccine can be kept at refrigerator temperatures. Another key difference is that the J&J jab requires a single shot. Together, those features will make the J&J vaccine easier to distribute to more people in more places through distribution channels that are already in place.

Panel members expressed support for the J&J vaccine, saying that the safety and efficacy data supported its authorization. But panelists also cautioned the public against picking vaccine favorites.

“It’s important that people do not think one vaccine is better than another,” said Cody Meissner, an infectious disease expert and professor of pediatrics at the Tufts University School of Medicine. “There is no preference for one vaccine over another and all vaccines work with what appears to be equal safety and equal efficacy as of this time.”

Emergency authorization is not the same as an approval. Federal law permits the FDA to allow marketing of unapproved medical products for emergency situations, such as a pandemic. Authorizations only last for the duration of the emergency. These authorizations can also be revoked if new data show that the product is not safe or effective. Stanley Perlman, a professor in the departments of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa, said that while the clinical studies to date have produced data about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, it would be “nice to have more.”

The J&J vaccine may be new, but compared to the mRNA vaccines, the technology behind it has bit of a longer track record. J&J vaccine makes it using its AdVac technology, the same platform that produced the company’s Ebola vaccine, which the FDA approved in 2019. The technology takes the virus that causes the common cold and modifies it so it doesn’t cause illness. That engineered virus is the delivery vehicle that ferries into cells a snippet of genetic code for the novel coronavirus’s spike protein. The genetic material serves as the blueprint from which the body’s cells produce spike proteins. The immune system responds by producing antibodies to those proteins, conferring immunity.

The clinical data to date for J&J Covid vaccine covers 44,000 adults from all over the world. In Phase 3 data reported in late January, the vaccine was 66% effective overall in preventing moderate-to-severe infection, 28 days after vaccination. Furthermore, the vaccine showed 85% efficacy in preventing severe disease, and showed complete protection against Covid-related hospitalization and death, also measured at day 28.

Those marks look inferior to the greater than 90% efficacy demonstrated in mRNA vaccine trials. But cross-trial comparisons are difficult and can be misleading because trials have different designs and different goals. Also, the mRNA studies were conducted earlier in the year when there were fewer variants circulating. Public health experts have said that if those vaccines were tested under current conditions, their efficacy rates might be lower, too.

Plans are already underway to gather more data about J&J’s shot, including a study of the vaccine in children and teens. Johan Van Hoof, the global head of the infectious diseases and vaccines for J&J’s Janssen subsidiary, told the advisory panel that a clinical trial testing the vaccine in those 17 and younger is expected to begin this spring. He also said that the company is assessing how the vaccine responds to variants of the novel coronavirus.

Shortly after Friday’s meeting, the FDA issued a statement saying that it would “rapidly work” with J&J toward finalization and issuance of an emergency use authorization. The agency added that it has notified federal partners involved in the allocation and distribution of vaccines, so that they are ready.

Photo: Getty Images, Sezeryadigar

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NPR News: FDA Advisory Committee Member On Vote On Pfizer's Coronavirus Vaccine Authorization

FDA Advisory Committee Member On Vote On Pfizer's Coronavirus Vaccine Authorization NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Dr. Cody Meissner, a member of the Food and Drug Administration immunization advisory panel, about the panel's vote on approval of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine. Read more on NPR