(The Defender) The U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic wants to know more about plans by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to recommend annual COVID-19 vaccines.
During a July interview with Spectrum News, CDC Director Mandy Cohen said she “anticipate[s] that COVID will become similar to flu shots, where … you get your annual flu shot and you get your annual COVID shot.”
As part of the House investigation into federal COVID-19 vaccination mandates and policies, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) last week sent a letter to Cohen, stating:
“It is unclear if the science supports such a recommendation. If this anticipated CDC recommendation occurs, it will mark a significant change in federal policy and guidance regarding COVID-19 vaccines and the way in which they are utilized.”
Wenstrup requested all documents and communications about any annual — “or any other time-based iteration” — recommendation for COVID-19 booster shots, including correspondence between or among the CDC, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (also under the subcommittee’s investigation), the White House, the CDC Foundation, CDC contractors and any other CDC stakeholders.
Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax are slated in September to release new single-strain COVID-19 shots targeting the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5. These vaccines are not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but manufacturers are following the June 15 recommendations of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC).
The committee of 21 independent advisers in June voted unanimously that any new vaccine should protect against just one strain of the virus — a departure from the available bivalent vaccines — and should target one of the three Omicron subvariants currently circulating, including XBB.1.5.
The XBB.1.5 variant spread globally in the first quarter of 2023, reaching dominance in North America, and other parts of the world by April, according to the FDA’s briefing document for the June meeting.
‘We really don’t know what the COVID season is’
FDA advisers in January raised concerns about shifting to a yearly schedule for COVID-19 vaccines. Unlike the flu, which thrives in the winter months, COVID-19’s spread has proved erratic, consistently mutating into new variants.
Dr. Mark Sawyer, professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, told CNBC that describing COVID-19 as seasonal “could be problematic” because “we really don’t know what the COVID season is.”
Dr. Peter McCullough, author of “The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex,” told The Defender:
“COVID-19 respiratory illness is now like a mild head cold. There is no seasonal pattern. The COVID-19 vaccines have failed to stop transmission or protect against hospitalization and death.
“The products on the market have theoretical efficacy of less than six months. Annual COVID-19 shots have no clinical indication, medical necessity, are not durable for 12 months and have never been tested for use on a yearly schedule.
“On Dec. 7, 2022 in a U.S. Senate panel on vaccines, I called for all COVID-19 vaccines to be removed from the market because they are not safe for human use. There has been no objection to that testimony from public health officials.”
NBC News reported that Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, acknowledged during an FDA advisory committee meeting in January that “simplifying the COVID-19 vaccine schedule to be exactly like the flu may not be possible.”
Pfizer hopes otherwise. The drug company’s chief scientific officer, Dr. Mikael Dolsten, thinks an annual COVID-19 vaccine would improve vaccine sentiment, telling CNBC the public grew dissatisfied with mandates during the earlier stages of the pandemic.
He said:
“Unfortunately some people see vaccines as part of that [the mandates].
“I think of it like the introduction of seat belts for cars. People didn’t want to wear them at first, but over time they realized how much seat belts protect them. Now everyone uses them today. That’s kind of how the vaccine story needs to be reimagined.”
An annual schedule, Dolsten added, may help people view COVID-19 shots as another “very natural part” of protecting their health.
