CDC panel endorses third Pfizer doses for high-risk adults

A key Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group voted Thursday to recommend distributing Pfizer and BioNTech‘s Covid-19 booster shots to older Americans, nursing home residents and other vulnerable people, clearing the way for the agency to give the final OK as early as this evening.

The agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously endorsed giving third Pfizer shots to people 65 and older and nursing home residents in the first of four votes. The panel also recommended third doses for adults age 18 to 64 with underlying conditions. Many of those groups were among the first to get the initial shots in December and January.

The panel struggled over a controversial proposal to give boosters to wide swath of the U.S. population, rejecting the plan by a vote of 9-6. It would have distributed the shots to nursing home staff, people who live or work in prisons and homeless shelters, front-line health employees, unpaid caregivers, and other essential workers, like teachers.

“I mean, we might as well just say just give it to everybody 18 and over,” committee member Dr. Pablo Sanchez said before voting against the proposal.

Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore health commissioner, on Twitter called the CDC panel’s vote to reject boosters more widely a “mistake.”

“Really, we are not allowing healthcare workers, many of whom got vaccinated in back in December, to get a booster? What about teachers in cramped classrooms where masks aren’t required?” she tweeted, adding CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky should overrule the recommendation.

The recommendation doesn’t go nearly as far as President Joe Biden wanted. His administration said it planned to start giving booster shots to people 16 and older this week. While the CDC panel’s recommendation doesn’t give the Biden administration everything it wanted, boosters will still be on the way for millions of Americans who originally received Pfizer’s shots.

The endorsement comes a day after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to administer third Pfizer shots to many Americans six months after they complete their first two doses. While the CDC’s committee’s recommendation isn’t binding, Walensky is expected to accept the panel’s endorsement shortly.

Walensky addressed the committee Thursday before the vote, thanking them for their work and laying out what’s at stake.

“These data are not perfect, yet collectively they form a picture for us, and they are what we have in this moment to make a decision about the next stage in this pandemic,” she said.

Before the vote, some committee members said they worried that widely offering boosters could interfere with efforts to get the shots to the unvaccinated or potentially reduce confidence in the vaccines’ effectiveness….