Monday 23 May 2022 04:01 PM Expert calls CDC advisory panel a 'kangaroo court' trends now
One of the nation's leading public health experts has slammed the CDC's top advisory panel over its approval of Covid booster shots for children as young as five years old - just as leading jab manufacturer Pfizer reveals plans to submit an application to give the shots to babies as young as six-months this week.
Dr Marty Makary, a public health expert from Johns Hopkins University, told DailyMaill.com that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is a 'kangaroo court' full of nothing but like-minded individuals pushing what he describes as 'low value care'.
He also said that they never have seen a vaccine they would not approve, and that others who had previously gone against the pro-jab dogma had been forced off of the panel.
The committee, which leads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) vaccine decision making, is made up of outside advisors from universities and research institutes around the country. It was convened to rule on whether children needed the additional vaccines - even when its counterpart in the Food and Drug Administration, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) was not.
This is the second straight decision VRBPAC was not convened for, with the committee Makary describes as including the nation's leading experts, also being passed on when the FDA approved fourth jabs for Americans aged 50 and older.
Last week, Covid booster shots for children aged five to 11 received approval from U.S. regulators, despite advisors who are a part of the FDA's VRBPAC not being consulted.
Makary notes that many members of VRBPAC, including Dr Cody Meissner, Dr Paul Offit and Dr Eric Rubin, were likely to have voted no on both decisions if asked based on statements they made both before and the approval.
This criticism comes as yet another low-risk group may be added to the vaccine rotation, with Pfizer revealing data Monday showing its three-dose regimen for children six-months to four years old is 80 percent effective at preventing infection from the Omicron variant. This likely proceeds an official application submission to have the jabs approved in the coming days.
Dr Marty Makary (pictured) described the CDC advisory panel that signed off on the approval of the shots as a 'kangaroo court' that has never seen a vaccine it would not approve
Last week, the FDA green-lighted COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for all American children aged five to 11 years old. Unlike earlier decisions, VRBPAC was not consulted on the decision. On Thursday, ACIP met, and all but one member of the panel approved distribution of the additional shots.
Makary called the ACIP panel 'the biggest slap in the face of science we’ve seen during the pandemic,' adding that 'the rational… was flawed,' for the approval.
He notes that Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, cited multiple times last week that Covid cases are rising among the nation's youth, though previous research unveiled by the agency finds that nearly three of every four U.S. children have already been infected - meaning they already have natural immunity to the virus.
The level of risk among children from Covid is extremely low as well, with the agency reporting that minors make up just over 1,000 of the over one million deaths the nation has suffered over the last two years of the pandemic - or around 0.1 percent of the total mortality burden.
The Johns Hopkins expert, who is also a pancreas surgeon best-selling author, also said the trial performed by Pfizer for the study did not include enough participants, with only 140 recruited. For comparison, the trials for approval for the original COVID-19 vaccine regimen approved in 2020
