New Pfizer Study the Media is Not Covering: 3-Doses of Covid Vax for Kids Under 5 Had No Significant BenefitUnfavorable results from a new Pfizer study have been ignored by the media, and cleverly spun as a positive by study authors.
David Zweig
Sep 20, 2023
A few days ago I published a critical piece about the US’s blanket recommendation for everyone aged 6 months and up to get the new Covid vaccine. The policy was met with swift backlash from a number of public health professionals, and it differs greatly from the tailored vaccine policies in many other countries. The study that I discuss below, which was published right after the CDC’s recommendation, makes for a fitting sequel.
On Friday September 15, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study that calls into the question the CDC’s vaccine policy for children under aged 5. The study analyzed the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine on preventing Covid-related medical visits for children aged 6 months through 4 years old.
Its findings are particularly noteworthy because
the study was conducted by Pfizer itself, along with researchers at Kaiser Permanente. And because, despite the vaccine already being approved and recommended for babies and toddlers,
until the study’s publication there were no analyses on the vaccine’s effectiveness for preventing outcomes that led to medical attention for this age group.
The vaccine for this age group was designed to be given as a three-dose primary series, which is the schedule that the FDA authorized and that the CDC recommended. While the study showed a benefit of two doses at reducing the likelihood of Covid-related emergency department, urgent care or outpatient visits, it found no statistically significant benefit for children who received the recommended three doses versus unvaccinated children. In other words,
the vaccine taken as directed did not reduce the incidence of emergency room or medical office visits related to Covid for this age group. ...
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