Pro-vaccine doctors skeptical of new COVID-19 boosters: ‘I’d really like to see the data’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pushing new COVID-19 boosters, claiming that people who don’t stay “up to date” with shots – regardless of how many they’ve already taken – “are more likely to get very sick” while those who take them annually are “much less likely to get very ill, be hospitalized, or even die” from COVID.
The Democratic nominee for president is so committed to staying up to date on jabs that Vice President Kamala Harris made COVID boosting a requirement to work on her campaign, “unless otherwise prohibited by applicable law.” They can also ask the human resources department for a “reasonable accommodation … prior to reporting to an office location.”
What’s the evidence for these interventions recommended to Americans and required of those who would work for the de facto incumbent?
That’s what critics of the public health agencies are asking as officials and mainstream media hype a rise in positive tests for SARS-CoV-2 and some schools shutter – in red states, no less – rather than let the demographic at the lowest risk from COVID learn in person.
The Democratic National Convention is even under fire in the wake of an alleged COVID outbreak that reportedly included two Harris campaign staffers, both presumably boosted, for not requiring attendees to mask up, despite little rigorous evidence that masking makes much difference to infection and transmission.
“While it is not surprising at an event this large that some people would test positive for COVID-19 over the course of the week, there is so far no evidence to suggest that an outbreak occurred,” the Chicago Department of Public Health told Just the News in an uncredited statement.
The city, state and federal agencies “established an enhanced public health surveillance strategy to monitor” for COVID at the convention and nearby amid the surge, and “guidance and masks were also provided” to attendees, but “the risks associated with COVID-19 are very different now than they were during the height of the pandemic,” CDPH said.
Chicago’s most recent publicly available infection rate estimates, using wastewater testing and PCR testing at hospital and commercial labs, as of Tuesday don’t include the week it hosted the four-day convention.
The Food and Drug Administration, which fact-checked Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim about its heavy funding by the pharmaceutical industry by saying he was 3% off, granted emergency use authorization to new COVID jabs during the convention.
You actually can’t make this up.
In response to the claim that 50% of the @US_FDA’s budget comes from pharma (a terrible incentive…), the agency released an official statement saying it is only 47%…
An executive order should be signed tomorrow making this 0. https://t.co/1UaePHO64F pic.twitter.com/QWgVURpq6r
— Calley Means (@calleymeans) August 25, 2024
Notably, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel didn’t go as far as the CDC in his claims about jabs by his own company and competitor Pfizer, formulated to target the KP.2 strain, calling them “one of the best ways” to stay “protected and prevent severe illness.”
The CDC and FDA also use different adjectives.
The former’s COVID treatment page says “you are protected best when you stay up to date” and Director Mandy Cohen recommended boosting all ages 6 months and up as “the best protection against severe illness,” while the FDA and its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks say new jabs offer “better protection.”
Asked for granular evidence that the updated vaccines offer “better protection” against circulating variants and serious consequences even for people who took every prior formulation, FDA press officer Cherie DuvallJones cited the June 5 discussions of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, CDC presentation on the effectiveness of the 2023-2024 formula and decision memos.
She also pointed to the CDC’s COVID vaccine effectiveness page and vaccine effectiveness studies page, but neither appear to focus on the new formulation.
The CDC linked the treatment page in an X post Monday that wasn’t even about vaccines but rather “early treatment” for people “more likely to get very sick” from COVID: the antivirals Paxlovid, remdesivir and molnupiravir.
Georgia-based COVID analyst Kelley Krohnert, known for documenting repeated COVID data errors by the CDC, flagged the agency’s “up to date” statements below the “early treatment” section of the page.
“That seems like quite a big claim — one that would require good data,” Krohnert wrote on X, referring to a much higher risk for those who took every booster save the most recent.
Paxlovid’s abilities have taken critical hits this year due to studies that involve employees of its maker, Pfizer.
The New England Journal of Medicine found “sustained alleviation” from COVID did not “differ significantly between” Paxlovid and placebo patients, and a Journal of the American Medical Association publication found no difference in long-COVID results between the two.
🚩 Dr. Marty Makary & Dr. Vinay Prasad on How Inconvenient Paxlovid Data Was Suppressed for Nearly Two Years
“A study came out in the New England Journal of Medicine on Paxlovid. Two big studies in the same issue. This was a couple months ago. No benefit in people under 65.… pic.twitter.com/tDih0gmdQt
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) August 26, 2024
The CDC estimated the KP.2 strain was already plummeting as the share of COVID infections when the FDA auth