Image from Sam Moqadam on Unsplash
The U.S. appears to be on the verge of expanding the use of COVID-19 vaccine boosters after an advisory committee backed boosters for the Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA) vaccines.
On October 14 and 15, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) separately voted 19–0 to recommend boosters of both products for high-risk populations.
The committee’s guidance for the two-dose mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech (NYSE: PFE/NSDQ:MRNA) was to allow boosters six months after completion of a primary series.
Conversely, VRBPAC recommended that recipients of the single-dose Janssen vaccine receive a booster at least two months after the initial dose.
Several panelists balked at the word “booster” in reference to the Janssen vaccine, arguing that would be more accurate to refer to it as a two-dose vaccine.
Still, the VRBPAC has expressed reservations about the use of boosters in the broader public. Although members of the committee agreed the case for boosters was clear for the elderly, immunocompromised and those facing a high risk of occupational or institutional exposure, the panel was overall frustrated with the availability of relevant data concerning boosters.
VRBPAC member Dr. Archana Chatterjee expressed skepticism that boosters would shift the needle in fighting the pandemic, noting that the U.S. is “seeing cases going down” without boosters. There may be little present need for boosters for those who are immune competent, she said. “The disease primarily seems to be occurring, especially in its most severe forms, in those who are unvaccinated,” Chatterjee said in yesterday’s meeting.
VRBPAC member Dr. Paul Offitt agreed. “The people who are in the ICU aren’t there because they haven’t gotten the third dose,” he said.
“I just worry that we haven’t clearly defined what the goal of this vaccine is,” Offit continued. “If the goal of the [COVID-19] vaccine is to prevent asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infection, that is a goal for which we have set for no other vaccine,” he explained. “If we’re trying to prevent what is inevitable, which is the decline in neutralizing antibodies, and erosion of protection against mild or asymptomatic infection, that is a high bar to which we hold no other vaccine.”