5:06 p.m. ET, September 23, 2021
CDC vaccine advisers vote against booster shots for people in situations or jobs that put them at high risk
From CNN's Maggie Fox
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted against allowing booster Covid-19 vaccines for people whose jobs or situations put them at high risk of breakthrough infections.
ACIP voted 9-6 against the question: “A single Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine booster dose is recommended based on individual benefit and risk for persons aged 18-64 years who are in an occupational or institutional setting where the burden of Covid-19 infection and risk of transmission are high, at least six months after the primary series under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization.”
These might have included frontline workers, include healthcare workers, caregivers for frail or immunocompromised people, people in homeless shelters and people in correctional facilities, the CDC said.
ACIP members argued before voting.
“We may just as well say give it to everyone 18 and older,” said Dr. Pablo Sanchez, a professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University.
“I feel very uncomfortable about this,” said Dr. Wilbur Chen, a professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “The implementation part of this is going to be fraught with such complexity that the people with the best health literacy will get boosters.”
But ACIP chair Dr. Grace Lee, a Stanford University pediatrician, said her personal experience made her aware of the need to make boosters widely available.
“I have cared for children who have died of Covid,” she said. “Their family members wish that they had extra protection for their kids.”
Earlier Thursday: ACIP voted to recommend boosters to people 65 and older and to people 50-64 with underlying medical conditions.
That was short of the FDA’s emergency use authorization, which OK'd giving boosters to anyone 18 and older at high risk of severe disease from breakthrough infections. ACIP instead limited its recommendation to people over 50 with such conditions after members expressed doubts about recommending boosters too broadly.
So staff added a third question that would allow a younger group to access boosters. Members were less enthusiastic about this option but voted 9-6 to recommend it.