The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent advisory panel voted unanimously to recommend booster doses of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine and allow people to mix-and-match doses.
The big picture: The agency aligns with the Food and Drug Administration authorization Wednesday night which said people could switch to whichever vaccine they wanted for their booster shot.
Details: Boosters for Moderna’s two-dose vaccine and J&J’s single-dose shot may be taken by Americans over 65, as well as those over 18.
- Dosing for the Moderna booster will be less than its two-dose regiment and will be permitted six months after the third shot. J&J will be allowed after two months.
- The Food and Drug Administration authorization Wednesday night greenlit people could switch to whichever vaccine they wanted for their booster shot and authorized boosters for certain populations.
Still, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices panel weighed the challenge in allowing younger people to for a booster qualify based on increased exposure to risk, despite lack of data.
- Sarah Long, a committee member also at Drexel University College of Medicine raised concerns on the contentious topic of opening up booster eligibility to all adults.
- “I can’t say I am comfortable that anyone under 50, otherwise healthy, needs a booster at this time,” she said in the meeting Thursday.
The panel also heard safety updates about the rare risk of inflammatory heart problems such as myocarditis among recipients of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, especially in men ages 18 to 24.
- Serious side effects after all vaccines are extremely rare, five separate updates on vaccine safety showed.
State of play: Public health experts see a positive effect in unifying recommendations specific populations who took any of the three vaccines.
- The committee in late September did not support a Pfizer booster for people in high-risk workforces but was overruled by CDC director Rochelle Walensky. There’s no indication the director wouldn’t do the same if the panel voted narrowly again.
- Though the agency’s recommendations hold a large influence among the medical community, state and local health departments could veer from the guidance.
What’s happening: There’s also been debate whether once again the agency has acted too slowly in mixing-and-matching guidance for those who received J&J.
- “We have to acknowledge we’re in a situation where we don’t have as much data as we would like. But we still have to make practical decisions and I think there’s as much data to support mixing and matching as there is for boosters in general,” John Whyte, chief medical officer of WebMD, tells Axios.
- For months, small samples of preliminary booster data suggest neutralizing antibodies from an mRNA shot like Moderna would increase 76 times and 35 times with Pfizer as opposed to only four times with another J&J shot.
What’s next: Walensky has the final say and could sign off on the guidance for clinicians and pharmacies to rollout third shots as soon as Friday.
Source: https://www.axios.com/cdc-guidance-boosters-mix-and-match-902c873a-e0ee-4dd7-808a-924e415463fa.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Marisa Fernandez
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