Washington – Government advisors will meet Thursday to decide if Vaccines for COVID-19 You need to update to improve protection this fall and winter, even as a New Trump administration Politics has questioned who can be eligible for an opportunity.
Food and drug administration External experts have gathered regularly since the launch of the first COVID-19 vaccines to discuss Adjust your recipes To stay ahead of the virus. Thursday’s meeting is the first time of the group since President Donald Trump took office.
But it arrives only two days later FDA leaders He sold the previous policy of the United States to recommend annual COVID-19 reinforcements for all Americans 6 months or more.
On the other hand, the FDA said that the routine approval of COVID-19 reinforcements will limit the older people who have a high risk of serious infection. Manufacturers must do new studies to show if seasonal shots still benefit healthy people under 65 years.
That raises great implications for the vaccination campaign of the next autumn, with uncertainty about whether healthy people could still obtain a vaccine, even if it is not recommended for them, or if insurers will continue to pay for shooting for all. Nor is it clear what politics for babies that have never been vaccinated.
“This is a disaster,” said Michael Ostolm, an expert in infectious diseases at the University of Minnesota. “The only thing we don’t want to do is place a barrier in their place that prevents parents from vaccinating their children if they want.”
FDA independent advisors can raise those problems on Thursday, but the changes are not the focus of the meeting, which was scheduled before the FDA announcement.
On the other hand, the panel is configured to recommend if the virus has mutated enough to guarantee tension updates for shots of Pfizer, Modern and Novavax.
“We are asking for guidance to help the FDA decide what tension select for COVID-19 vaccines in the future,” FDA VINAY PRASAD vaccine manager He said in the comments that open the meeting. Prasad added that the agency wants to “give people a little more time to digest”, the new vaccine policy and is open to comments.
The past autumn recipe was adapted to Omicron’s descendants in the Jn.1 branch of the tree genustarial tree. Novavax’s elaborate shots are directed to the Jn.1 variant of the parents, while Pfizer and Modern opted for a subtype called KP.2.
That Jn.1 family still dominates, although it continues to evolve. The question is whether past autumn shots still offer enough cross protection or if manufacturers in their place should coincide with the most common subtype today, called LP.8.1.
The World Health Organization recently said that last year’s version was fine, but that vaccine manufacturers could choose an update. Instead, the European Medicines Agency recommended addressing the new subtype.
FDA officials did not express preference in the documents published online before Thursday’s meeting. He suggested at the beginning of the week that the government should move away from annual updates.
“Instead of having a COVID-19 strategy that is year after year in which we change things every year, why don’t we let science tell us when to change?” Prasad said.
Discussing that science is what FDA vaccine advisors do every year. If they recommend leaving the shots without changes, and the FDA agrees, it is possible that healthy adults and children still have access to autumn reinforcement, since this week’s policy changes suggest that new studies would be required only if manufacturers change tensions or introduce a completely new vaccine. Those would be great studies of six months, and vaccine experts question whether their cost and logistics could make them unfeasible.
Even so, the FDA tension decision is usually not the last word about recommendations on who should be vaccinated.
The disease control and prevention advisory panel meets in June to make recommendations on autumn shots. Among your options are universal access or recommending vaccination for high -risk groups, but it still gives people of less risk the option to get a chance.
Prasad and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary They were both open critics of government management COVID-19 during the pandemic, particularly the recommendation for use in young and healthy adults and children. Before joining the government, each one caught the attention of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.who built a national follow -up for throwing doubts about security and vaccines benefits.
In an editorial of the medical magazine that describes the new FDA approach, they criticized the “unique size” approach of the United States, saying that it has been out of tune with Europe and other places with more limited recommendations for reinforcements.
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