No more vaccine warrants likely once FDA grants full approvals: experts

More vaccination warrants could be imposed on the United States once the Food and Drug Administration gives final approval for COVID-19 injections, health experts predicted.

All three vaccines on the market are currently being administered under emergency use authorization, but full regulatory approval could remove legal barriers for businesses and government agencies wishing to require injections for their customers and employees. , NBC News reported.

“I think once the vaccines are approved by the FDA, everything should be on the table, and I think everything will be on the table at the municipal, state, employer, site, government agency level,” Andy Slavitt, the Biden the administration’s former COVID-19 response coordinator, told NBC News.

Once one or more of the vaccines are fully approved, Slavitt said he believes federal agencies should start requiring inoculation.

“I think every government agency should rethink what’s appropriate,” Slavitt said. “There are a number of people in the polls, by the way, who say precisely these words, ‘I’m not going to take it, unless it’s required.'”

Robert Field, professor of law and public health at Drexel University, noted that there had been no precedent for requiring injections yet in the full regulatory review process.

“Employers are on a more fragile footing because of the emergency use authorization,” Field told Reuters in December.

Full approval is the strongest FDA approval for a drug and typically requires six months of follow-up safety.

Pfizer and Moderna have sought full approval for their two-dose vaccines, both of which received emergency use approval in December.

Pfizer has said it anticipates a decision no later than January 2022, but the FDA is largely expected to complete its vaccine review work much sooner.

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services to President Barack Obama, said the warrants could be the push needed to get more Americans vaccinated as more contagious strains, such as the Delta variant, spread across the country. country.

“Shame on us if we sit here in July and do nothing to increase immunization rates and then we can’t open schools or have a situation where, God forbid, the economy takes another hit. because businesses have to shut down, ”she said.

With post wires