Fauci faced with seemingly changing tune on booster shots after FDA panel recommendation

Dr Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that if he supported the recent rejection by a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee of COVID-19 booster injections for most Americans, he would support such jabs at the future under certain conditions.

“I don’t think they were wrong,” Fauci said during a CNN appearance State of the Union. “We would like to foresee the possibility of vaccinating everyone who received their initial vaccination with Pfizer, and that was still pending the evaluation of the totality of data from the United States, Israel, and all bit of data that we might get, by the FDA advisory committee. ”

The FDA panel on Friday voted 16 to 3 not to approve Pfizer’s request to add a third booster to its COVID-19 vaccination schedule for Americans aged 16 and older. The decision was attributed to a lack of sufficient data to substantiate the need for more shots for all.

“It is not clear that everyone needs strengthening except for a subset of the population who would clearly be at high risk for serious illness,” said Dr Michael G. Kurilla , panel member, on Friday’s vote.

When faced with State of the Union host Jake Tapper of his previous insistence that booster injections be approved, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), clarified that his support was based on his own personal position in as a scientist. He said that despite his own feelings on the matter, he can support the decisions of an informed panel of experts.

The FDA advisory committee’s decision still allows for the recommendation of booster injections for certain populations at higher risk of infection. This includes people aged 65 and over; people aged 16 to 64 with certain health problems; and people in certain jobs that could expose them to infection more regularly.

Fauci tempered his support for this most recent decision by pointing out that new data is coming in and being factored in every day, so the FDA’s stance could change in the near future. He said he would support any future recall recommendations, if they were based on sufficient data. Fauci also noted that similar decisions regarding the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shootings could be made within weeks.

“The story is not over yet, I think people need to understand this,” he said.

President Joe Biden’s administration previously set September 20 as the start date for rolling out COVID-19 booster injections for all eligible Americans. Fauci explained during a Sunday appearance on ABC News’ This week that this date has been set as a placeholder so that the process can begin soon after the FDA has made a decision.

“The plan was that we had to be ready to do it as soon as a decision was made,” he said. “And when you have a plan, you put a date on it and say, ‘We want to be able to prepare to deploy the week of September 20th. “”