A group of prominent experts on COVID-19 is pushing President Joe Biden to significantly scale back his plan to provide booster shots for every vaccinated American.
The experts, some of whom advised the president during the transition, told Biden and some of his top medical experts during a September 27 conference call that the data currently available does not justify using booster shots to combat breakthrough COVID infections among the vaccinated, according to Politico. The outside experts argued that the boosters should be restricted to only those at high risk from COVID-19.
Biden was joined on the call along with White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House policy adviser Cameron Webb, and the heads of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As Politico reported:
The Sept. 27 call was originally planned for the week before. The White House abruptly rescheduled it after the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory committee recommended that the Pfizer-BioNTech booster be reserved for high-risk groups, including the elderly.
The rescheduled call was the tensest one to date, according to the three people with information on the talks. Fauci argued that the CDC committee’s stance — that science did not support giving boosters to all adults — was incorrect. And he dismissed suggestions that the administration had to choose between a broad U.S. booster campaign and donating vaccines to countries in need.
The president’s chief medical adviser also told the outside experts that boosters could, and should, be given widely to reduce the spread of the coronavirus rather than only to prevent severe disease or death.
Fauci’s comments reportedly left the independent experts confused as to what the White House wanted to accomplish with the vaccines. “It was very tense,” one person said, according to Politico. “More than anything, it was like Fauci felt he needed to make a point.”
Story cited here.
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