Despite the alarming rise in COVID among young Americans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning to parents not to vaccinate their children until the agency has approved a drug for the particular age group.
The FDA said not to vaccinate children aged 12 and younger until it gives approval to any of the COVID vaccines in the U.S. today, as they said "children are not small adults."
According to CBN News, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that children under 12 often experience asymptomatic to mild symptoms of COVID. However, former FDA head Scott Gottlieb said that it is likely that a vaccine for children will arrive sooner or later.
"You could potentially have a vaccine available to children aged 5 to 11 by Halloween if everything goes well," Gottlieb said. Meanwhile, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President Dr. Anthony Fauci has shown his support for the idea of vaccinating children.
CNBC reported that during a lecture hosted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Dr. Fauci presented three key reasons why young people should be vaccinated against COVID. The infectious diseases expert argued that "we should vaccinate the children" because young people are "vehicles of spread" for COVID.
"So even though relatively speaking, compared to an adult they don't get as seriously ill, we have lost more children from SARS-CoV-2 than we ever lose for influenza - and we vaccinate children against influenza," Dr. Fauci reasoned.
However, he also said that "We don't know what the effects are going to be on anyone, including children. So it may be that much to our dismay that children who get infected have long-term consequences that we don't fully appreciate right now."
Dr. Fauci argued, "For those reasons, one of transmissibility, one of the seriousness of disease and one of uncertainty about long-range consequences, I come down strongly on ultimately vaccinating our children."
FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock and Dr. Peter Marks of the FDA's Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation proposed different doses of the COVID vaccine for different age groups, WebMD noted. Drs. Woodcock and Marks said, "Children are not small adults - and issues that may be addressed in pediatric vaccine trials can include whether there is a need for different doses or different strength formulations of vaccines already used for adults."
The idea of vaccinating children was also met with backlash especially in the face of President Joe Biden's harsher new vaccine mandates. The stricter vaccine mandates, which are set to affect 80 million working Americans, carry penalties of up to $14,000 for each violation. Heritage Action for America's Lindsey Curnutte said that it was unconstitutional, arguing, "We've really got to call this out for what it is: it's a fundamental attack on our rights."
