Halloween hope for under-12 kids jab
The former head of the Food and Drug Administration said Sunday that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine could be approved for children ages 5 to 11 by the end of October.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who helmed the FDA under President Donald Trump and serves on Pfizer’s board of directors, said the company should get information on its vaccines on young kids before the end of September.
“In a best-case scenario, given that timeline they’ve just laid out, you could potentially have a vaccine available to children aged 5 to 11 by Halloween,” Gottlieb said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
“If everything goes well, the Pfizer data package is in order, and FDA ultimately makes a positive determination, I have confidence in Pfizer in terms of the data that they’ve collected,” Gottlieb said. “But this is really up to the Food and Drug Administration to make an objective determination.”
The FDA has said it would take weeks, not months, to determine whether to OK the two-dose vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11.
The decision about whether to vaccinate younger children comes amid pressure to contain a surge of infections caused by the Delta variant, which has complicated efforts for schools to return to classes.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, previously outlined a similar timeline for the decision during an online town hall meeting with thousands of colleagues at the National Institutes of Health, a source said.
If Pfizer files for the Emergency Use Authorization by the end of September, and the studies prove that the vaccine is safe and effective for children, then “by the time we get to October, the first couple of weeks of October . . . the Pfizer product will likely be ready,” Fauci said, according to the source.
Fauci said that Moderna will take about three weeks longer to compile data for the same age group, according to the source.
Children ages 12 and older are currently able to get vaccinated with Pfizer’s vaccine.