Some Biden health officials push to make coronavirus booster shots available to all adults but support is not universal

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Fri, 2021-11-12 11:05 — mike kraft

Top Biden health officials push to make coronavirus booster shots available to all adults But support is not universal; CDC Director Rochelle Walensky ‘wants to see the data.’ Washington Post

Anxious about a surge of coronavirus infections enveloping Europe as cases tick up in the United States, senior health officials in the Biden administration are pressing urgently to offer vaccine booster shots to all adults. But support for the renewed push is not unanimous.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky has expressed caution about making extra shots so broadly available now, according to several officials familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. As a result, tension is rising among officials over how quickly to proceed and who should get the shots.

The debate comes at a critical time for the Biden administration, with top advisers growing increasingly fearful the country could slide backward into a fifth pandemic wave amid colder weather and declining vaccine protection. Eager for the president to push his economic agenda, many aides see expanding booster access as a way to backstop progress against the highly transmissible delta variant. Allies also see defeating the pandemic as critical to Democrats’ success in next year’s midterm elections.

The debate over booster eligibility centers on a request by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech to the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the shots for everyone 18 and older who has gone at least six months since completing their vaccine regimen. If the FDA grants the request, the CDC’s outside vaccine advisers would probably need to weigh in before Walensky makes a final decision.

In a meeting Sunday with high-ranking health officials, Walensky said that she and the advisers want to scrutinize the drug companies’ data and might not agree to such a broad recommendation, said an official close to her who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. It’s extremely rare for the CDC to overrule the recommendations of its advisers.

“She wants to see the data so she can formulate her decision,” the person said, referring to Pfizer’s most recent request to the FDA. “Someone took that as her reservation. That’s not her reservation. She was pointing out that they might not go along. She knows no matter what, the decision is hers.”

Walensky’s skittishness reflects the attitude of some CDC officials and advisers who are not convinced that young, healthy people need additional protection, especially since the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been linked to a rare cardiac side effect in male teenagers and young men. They also note that focusing on boosters may distract front-line personnel from the more critical effort to defeat the pandemic, which is to get the first shots to unvaccinated people. ...

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