U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Tuesday has greenlit the immediate distribution of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID vaccine among children aged 5 to 11. Dr. Walensky authorized the use of the Pfizer COVID vaccine for kids following a unanimous recommendation by the agency's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Calling the decision "another important step forward in our nation's fight against the virus," Dr. Walensky said, "We know millions of parents are eager to get their children vaccinated and with this decision, we now have recommended that about 28 million children receive a COVID-19 vaccine," Fox News reported.
The CDC's decision came after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized emergency use for pediatric doses, which are about one-third of the dose given to adolescents and adults. The same Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine is already approved for emergency use among the 12-15 age group. Tuesday's decision makes over 28 million more children eligible to get the jab as early as this week.
The FDA in October affirmed the results of a test that Pfizer-BioNTech conducted, in which it showed that the two-dose COVID vaccine was about 91% effective in preventing symptomatic infection among young children. Even before the pediatric shots were greenlit, the Biden administration had already assembled and shipped out millions of doses for children across the U.S.
"Starting the week of Nov. 8, the kids vaccination program will be fully up and running," White House coronavirus response coordinator said on Monday, as reported by CNBC. "Parents will be able to schedule appointments at convenient sites they know and trust to get their kids vaccinated."
But a slew of medical professionals are against experimental COVID vaccines being used on kids 5 to 11. Dr. Ben Carson, who formerly served as director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, recently spoke out against inoculating children with the COVID vaccines, describing it as a "giant experiment."
WND reported that Dr. Martin Kulldorf, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the FDA and CDC scientific advisory committees, also opposed the COVID vaccines for kids for the reason that "COVID is not a huge threat to children."
Dr. Harvey Risch, professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine, on the other hand, argued that only children with "chronic conditions that make their risk appreciable" should be considered for the pediatric COVID shots.
University of Oxford Department of Zoology infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of theoretical epidemiology Dr. Sunetra Gupta shared Dr. Risch's sentiment, saying that pediatric vaccination should be limited to "the vulnerable and not target children" because they are "unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination directly."
Finally, Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist and immunologist who is one of the people behind the mRNA technology used in vaccine development studies, claimed that "There is absolutely no scientific or medical justification for vaccinating children, in my opinion."
