As the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to mutate, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of two mRNA vaccines targeting the omicron variant (XBB.1.5) of SARS-CoV-2 on September 11, and the following day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended universal vaccination of people ages six months and older.
The 13-to-1 vote by a CDC panel of advisers to greenlight the rollout of the booster was welcomed by agency Director Mandy Cohen.
“We have more tools than ever to prevent the worst outcomes from COVID-19,” Cohen said. “CDC is now recommending updated COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 6 months and older to better protect you and your loved ones.”
The CDC’s decision to recommend the shot for everyone, rather than narrowly targeting vulnerable older people, could easily become a mandate for schools, businesses, and government agencies. But the vaccine will likely encounter stiff resistance, compared to the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines nearly three years ago. A Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 30 percent of respondents were “very interested” in the new booster and 24 percent “somewhat interested,” while 17 percent were “not very interested” and 30 percent were “not interested at all.”
One day before the CDC’s action, the FDA approved vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. The FDA is expected to give the go-ahead for a booster by Novavax shortly. All three boosters are designed to combat XBB.1.5. Evidence from laboratory tests suggests that another recent strain of the coronavirus, BA.2.86, does not pose an omicron-level threat and should not require its own booster to bolster antibodies, The Washington Post reported on September 17.
Boosters Chase Extinct Variants
Investigative journalist Alex Berenson, a vocal critic of the public-health bureaucracy’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, wrote on substack that the CDC’s own statistics show the mRNA vaccine and boosters make no difference, says Berenson.
“They become ineffective against Omicron variants of COVID within months, possibly weeks,” Berenson wrote. “‘Updating’ them—that is, changing the mRNA they contain, in an effort to keep current with the current variant—does not help. Why? Imprinting from the original jabs makes our immune systems produce antibodies tailored to fight the now-extinct original coronavirus variant, no matter the specifics of the mRNA in the booster.”
The evidence the shots protect against hospitalization and severe illness is weaker than mRNA advocates claim, says Berenson.
“The CDC reported yesterday (September 12) the jabs have roughly 0 to 25 percent effectiveness against hospitalization within three to four months,” wrote Berenson. “Health authorities originally promised the COVID vaccines needed at least 50 percent effectiveness for approval. But the CDC’s own data show booster effectiveness against Omicron is nowhere near that level.”
‘A Very Bad Bet’
Furthermore, the potential side effects from the shots outweigh the risks of the virus, particularly to healthy young people, says Berenson.
“[T]he mRNA vaccines have much more severe side effects than flu shots, the only vaccines that are comparable in terms of their (lack of) effectiveness,” Berenson wrote. “This combination makes the mRNA vaccine a very bad bet—particularly for children, who are at miniscule risk of hospitalization or death from COVID.”
A staggering number of cases with severe side effects are caused by mRNA vaccines, says Berenson.
“The CDC itself estimated yesterday that 1 million mRNA boosters in adolescents would prevent at most one death from COVID (and probably zero), as well as roughly 10 COVID intensive-care admissions.” wrote Berenson. “At the same time, giving teenagers a million mRNA doses will cause anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 cases of severe short-term side effects, such as fevers and nausea. They will also cause anywhere between 50 and 300 cases of myocarditis severe enough to cause hospitalization (depending on which estimates and what mix of Pfizer and Moderna shots are used).”
“That math has prompted Japan, Germany, Britain, and Australia to stop recommending COVID boosters for children and teenagers, and the latter three countries no longer recommend the shots for the vast majority of people under 65,” wrote Berenson.
“A Huge Mistake”
The CDC has learned nothing from its poor performance during COVID-19, says Joel Zinberg, M.D., J.D., a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and director of the Public Health and American Well-Being Initiative at the Paragon Health Institute.
“As it did throughout the pandemic, the CDC is once again failing in its responsibility to clearly communicate with the public,” said Zinberg. “Its recommendation that everyone 6 months or older be vaccinated fails to inform people that the benefits and risks of the new vaccines vary substantially among different age groups, leaving them without the information they need to make an informed consent.”
The CDC’s and FDA’s actions betray their basic mission, says Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“The main job of our regulatory agencies is to ensure safety,” said Orient. “As safety signals about COVID jabs are becoming too frequent for ordinary people to ignore, it is shocking to see this blanket recommendation—with no effort to do the intensive investigations needed to confirm or refute the association of the jabs with heart damage, blood clots, paralysis, sudden death, infertility, or cancer.” “Maybe these associations are ‘rare,’ but how big a risk are you willing to take?”
The CDC’s recommendations also lack a needed scientific context, says Orient.
“There have been no head-to-head studies of vaccines compared with nasal sprays, vitamin D, zinc, or prophylaxis with hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin,” said Orient.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph.D. (bcohen@nationalcenter.org) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.
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