In a rare move, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overruled an advisory panel’s decision to not recommend Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine booster shots for health care workers and others who risk contracting the virus at work.
Walensky’s decision puts CDC policy in alignment with that of the FDA.
From the New York Times:
She approved the panel’s decision to endorse third shots for people over 65, patients in nursing homes and other institutional settings, and those with underlying medical conditions.
On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized booster shots for certain frontline workers. But the C.D.C.’s advisers disagreed that the doses were needed by so many healthy people.
Read the full article here.
Many healthcare experts thought the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) decision against offering boosters to folks like nurses, doctors, teachers, etc, was a mistake.
The @CDCDirector Dr. Walensky does the right thing
Unsurprisingly
The ACIP vote against boosters for people in high risk situations (i.e. HC workers) was a mistake
Dr. Walensky fixed it
This is why its good to have a strong CDC Director https://t.co/oR0kTodVqQ
— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) September 24, 2021
And… I spoke too soon. Now this is a mistake from CDC ACIP. Really, we are not allowing healthcare workers, many of whom got vaccinated in back in December, to get a booster? What about teachers in cramped classrooms where masks aren’t required? @CDCDirector needs to overrule. https://t.co/wF6F0WFoPj
— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) September 23, 2021