Something strange has been happening in recent weeks between the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). President Biden, apparently a fervent believer in the concept of booster shots, promised on camera in August that a third vaccine dose would be ready for every vaccinated American by Sept. 20. However, shortly after the Biden deadline and announcement, anger and contention began brewing within the FDA and CDC over whether or not booster shots were truly necessary or warranted for most people.
The debate and confusion became so bad that two FDA commissioners ended up resigning over the realization that politics – not science – was driving the agenda on booster shots according to Politico back on August 31:
On Tuesday [Aug. 31], two top FDA vaccine regulators resigned — a decision that one former official said was rooted in anger over the agency’s lack of autonomy in the booster planning so far. A current health official said the pair, Marion Gruber and Philip Krause, left over differences with FDA’s top vaccine official Peter Marks. Now the agency is facing a potential mutiny among its staff and outside vaccine advisers, several of whom feel cut out of key decisions and who view the plan to offer boosters to all adults as premature and unnecessary.
The issue has only escalated with intensity since that time leading to more and more reports of confusion and dissension between Biden administration officials and top officials at the FDA in charge of determining when and if Covid vaccination booster shots are necessary.
As NBC News reports, the Biden administration decided to jump the line and begin pushing booster shots as public health policy before the public health policymakers had even started drafting an opinion on the matter:
Biden and his top public health officials made the highly unusual move of announcing last month, before the standard FDA review process, that those 16 years and older would start getting booster shots this week. But a panel of FDA advisers rejected the plan Friday, voting that boosters should be given only to senior citizens and those at increased risk of infection.
Biden announced the plan and the timeline in a televised address, but White House officials have sought to distance him from the effort in recent days, stressing that the decision was made by his top health officials, including the acting FDA commissioner and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why would Biden push such a plan and get ahead of his own health experts? For an administration that makes “follow the science” a motto of their Covid policy, this move seemed to fly entirely in the face of “the science” on the issue since “the science” is still nowhere near settled.
Days after the announcement, and days after the two FDA commissions resigned, the Biden admin tried to walk back their announcement and point out that the plan was contingent on signoff from the FDA and CDC. However, that’s not what Biden originally said.
Once Biden made the booster shot announcement in August, the cat was out of the bag and some health care providers and hospitals started taking it upon themselves to administer booster shots to employees and staff with the presumption that a third dose was days away from approval:
“Many, many, many” providers in southern states with coronavirus case surges are dosing health care workers and patients with boosters absent an FDA approval because of confusion over Biden booster remarks, said Helen Talbot, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University and member of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel that recommends how vaccines are used.
“This highlights, critically, the need for any vaccine recommendations to go through the normal avenues and not come out from outside,” she said during a Monday meeting of the panel. “It is very frightening to me that healthcare providers, trying to do the best job that they can, are taking guidance from HHS and White House, and now have put themselves at risk.”
The emphasis on Biden’s remarks causing the confusion is noteworthy. When the President speaks like something is already a done deal, and sticks a date on it, despite having no concrete approval from his health officials, it’s a recipe for a public health debacle.
So, what sparked Biden’s rush to pushing booster shots against the guidance of his own health officials? In short, fear of a vaccine shortage in the event that effectiveness and efficacy begin to wane over time:
Top advisers to President Joe Biden pushed for his administration to announce a broad booster rollout for September in part because of fears that the U.S. could run short of doses needed to offer the shots to its entire population if vaccines’ protection decreased suddenly, according to two senior officials with knowledge of the matter.
The internal campaign coincided with pleas from international leaders for the U.S. to do more to help lower-and middle-income countries secure initial doses. Biden’s team wanted to make sure the U.S. would have enough supply for the 40 percent of eligible Americans who still needed their first shots and those who would eventually need a boost, the officials said — despite the country’s deep vaccine stockpile.
Fear is often the driving factor in bad policymaking and bad decision-making in life. In this case, advisors like Dr. Anthony Fauci were watching the infection rate spike in Israel, a country with a massively high vaccination rate, and fearing that the United States could soon be overwhelmed with breakthrough cases.
The answer? Start pushing booster shots immediately as Israel has done. The only problem is that for Fauci, and others, the FDA and CDC weren’t on the same page or operating at the same level of fear.
As a result, the booster rollout promised by President Biden for all Americans by Sept. 20 will only apply to those aged 65 or older, or with a serious medical condition. Those are the guidelines that the FDA came up with after still rejecting the idea that all vaccinated adults need a shooter shot right now:
Food and Drug Administration advisers decided to recommend booster shots only for those over age 65 or at special risk — rather than Biden’s public preference of everyone 16 years and older — after a month of controversy in which top FDA scientists resigned and outside medical experts complained that the White House appeared to be pressuring the agency to greenlight boosters for all.
The “follow the science” administration got schooled by the science this time and, once again, the public is paying the price for a bungled public health message.
