Booster plan dealt setback
Endorsed for seniors, high risk factors only
WASHINGTON — Dealing the White House a stinging setback, a government advisory panel overwhelmingly rejected a plan Friday to give Pfizer COVID-19 booster shots across the board. Instead, it endorsed the extra vaccine dose only for those who are 65 or older or run a high risk of severe disease.
The twin votes represented a heavy blow to the Biden administration’s sweeping effort, announced a month ago, to shore up nearly all Americans’ protection amid the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.
The nonbinding recommendation — from an influential committee of outside experts who advise the Food and Drug Administration — is not the last word. The FDA will consider the group’s advice and make its own decision, probably within days. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to weigh in next week.
In a surprising turn, the advisory panel rejected, 16-2, boosters for almost everyone. Members cited a lack of safety data on extra doses and raised doubts about the value of mass boosters, rather than ones targeted to specific groups.
Then, in an 18-0 vote, it endorsed extra shots for people 65 and older and those at risk of serious disease. Panel members also agreed that health workers and others who run a high risk of being exposed to the virus on the job should get boosters.
The White House sought to frame the action as progress.
“Today was an important step forward in providing better protection to Americans from COVID-19,” White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said. “We stand ready to provide booster shots to eligible Americans once the process concludes at the end of next week.”
The CDC has said it is considering boosters for older people, nursing home residents and front-line health care workers, rather than all adults.
The FDA and CDC will most likely decide at some later point whether people who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson shots should get boosters.
In a statement, Kathrin U. Jansen, Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development, said the company continues to believe that boosters will be a “critical tool in the ongoing effort to control the spread of this virus.”
On Friday, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said the Biden administration announcement a month ago was not aimed at pressuring regulators to act but was instead an attempt to be transparent with the public and be prepared in the event that boosters won approval.
“We have always said that this initial plan would be contingent on the FDA and the CDC’S independent evaluation,” Murthy said.
The Biden plan has also raised major ethical concerns about impoverished parts of the world still clamoring for vaccine. But the administration argued that the plan was not an us-or-them choice, noting that the U.S. is supplying large quantities of vaccine to the rest of the globe. In other developments:
■ Two of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s children have tested positive for the coronavirus and his family is following “all COVID protocols,” his office announced Friday.
■ American Samoa reported its first case of coronavirus Friday. The U.S. territory’s acting governor and health officials said the islands’ first case of COVID-19 was in a resident who returned to America Samoa from Hawaii this week.
■ The World Health Organization and United Nations on Friday declined to indicate how many in their workforces have been vaccinated. “We won’t have that because it’s confidential,” said Dr. Margaret Harris, a WHO spokeswoman.