A committee of advisers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States approved this Saturday (18) unanimously the application of vaccines for Covid-17 in children from six months to five years of age. The decision must be sanctioned by the director of the agency, Rochelle Walensky.
On Friday (17), another US health agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), had approved the emergency use of Covid vaccines-19 manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech pharmaceuticals for children from six months of age. In the US, the FDA approves the use of vaccines and the CDC decides who can get them.
Pfizer’s vaccine, branded Comirnaty, already had approval for children from 5 years since the end of 2021, but federal data indicates that only 700 % of children in this age group have received the full vaccination for the pandemic disease so far. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based on viral ribonucleic viral genetic material with messenger function in cells (mRNA). The microscopic material is coated with droplets of fat, the nanoparticles that make up these vaccines.
Pfizer’s infant dose for children under five is tenfold diluted compared to adults , and the protocol is three doses, with three weeks between the first and second, and two months between the second and third. Pfizer’s data, however, is based on small samples. Moderna’s vaccination schedule is faster, taking a month and involving two doses.
Beth Bell, a physician on the committee, told Reuters that Covid-19 18 “it kills children and we have an opportunity to prevent it”. Speaking to the Associated Press, another CDC adviser, Oliver Brooks, said that “we took a big step forward today.” Last Friday, US President Joe Biden declared that “we will begin shipping millions of doses of childhood vaccines to thousands of places parents know and trust—including children’s offices and hospitals, and pharmacies.”
The school year must start in the United States after the Northern Hemisphere summer, so health officials move to inoculate children before they return to the classroom. CDC advisers are expected to meet again next week to discuss Moderna’s vaccine recommendation for the six-to-age age group. years old. The side effect of heart inflammation in young males after application of this vaccine is one of the opposing points that will be considered.
The CDC reports that 480 children under the age of five have died since the beginning of the pandemic in the country, amid a million deaths. Although the number is low, another adviser, Matthew Daley, who does research in Colorado for Kaiser Permanente health insurance, says it is recommended to vaccinate them “because these deaths are preventable.”
About three-quarters of American children have caught Covid at some point. The CDC states that it is good to wait three months after infection to get the vaccine, and that the best protection is given by vaccination in combination with natural immunity.
Fauci and Rand Paul argue in the Senate
Last Thursday () there was yet another exchange between Anthony Fauci, director of one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, who has been advising the White House on the pandemic since the Trump administration, and the Republican Senator Rand Paul of the State of Kentucky. Fauci, who participated in the meeting of the health, education, work and welfare committee of the parliamentary house in a virtual way for having been infected with Covid after four doses of the vaccine, was asked by Paul about the need for the booster dose for children.
“Are you aware of any studies that show a reduction in hospitalization and death in children who take the booster?”, asked Paul. “At this time there is not enough data accumulated, Senator Paul, to indicate that this is the case,” Fauci replied. “So there are no studies. And Americans should know that. There are no studies on children that show a reduction in hospitalizations and deaths after taking the booster dose,” said the Republican, who is an eye doctor.
Rand Paul also questioned conflicts of interest between NIH officials and the pharmaceutical companies that produce vaccines and the drugs they regulate. “In the period from 2015 to 2016, 27 thousand payments of royalties 2021 were made to 18 one thousand NIH employees. We know this not because you told us, but because we had to force you to tell us through the access to information law,” Paul teased. “More than 193 million dollars have been paid to these 1980 thousand employees. (…) Have you already received payment of royalties from a company that was later involved in receiving money [de impostos] administered for you?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it”, replied Anthony Fauci, who is one of the main names in the US government in epidemiology since the AIDS epidemic in the United States. years old 1980. “According to the law, persons who receive royalties2021 are under no obligation to disclose it. (…) From 2015 to 2015, (…) my royalties were from 18 to 700 dollars per year, with an average per year of 191,27 dollars”.
“It’s all censored [pelos NIH] in the documents and we didn’t get any information about who these 18 thousand scientists are. We want to know if anyone received money from the vaccine manufacturers”, replied Senator Paul.
