One of their chief concerns was the disease's relatively low risk to young people. They wrote: "The bulk of the official COVID-19-attributed deaths per capita occur in the elderly with high comorbidities, and the COVID-19 attributed deaths per capita are negligible in children."
Another concern they outlined was the fact that clinical vaccine trials only spanned a few months and that the samples used did not represent the overall population. The small size of the trials in adolescents and children have a poor predictive power, and the trails did not address any changes in biomarkers that would have served as early warning indicators of a higher predisposition to serious disease.
In addition, the long-term effects were ignored. They wrote: “Most importantly, the clinical trials did not address long-term effects that, if serious, would be borne by children/adolescents for potentially decades."
They also cited the high number of post-inoculation deaths reported in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) – a system that has been shown historically to only report around 1 percent of the actual vaccine adverse events that take place, they point out. Moreover, the deaths shown in VAERS so far are short-term only – around one month in children – which means it doesn’t take into account potential deaths in the intermediate and long term from problems like clotting, autoimmune effects, and antibody-dependent enhancement that take longer to develop.
The report said that in a conservative cost-benefit analysis of the best-case scenario, there are five times as many deaths attributable to each inoculation versus those that can be attributed to the disease in the most vulnerable demographic, people aged 65 and above. And because the risk of dying from COVID-19 is reduced dramatically as age decreases, the longer-term effects of these shots on the younger age groups could raise their risk-benefit ratio substantially.
Pfizer moving forward with push to vaccinate young children
Nevertheless, last week, Pfizer announced that clinical trials have shown its vaccine is safe and effective in children aged 5 to 11 at a dose of a third of the amount being given to adolescents and adults and that they plan to submit their data to the FDA soon. This came just three days after an FDA advisory panel voted against the drug giant’s application for a COVID-19 booster shot for Americans over 16.
They cited several concerns in their decision, including a lack of sufficient data to assess the risks of Pfizer’s vaccine to younger groups. In particular, they highlighted the potential higher risk of heart inflammation, particularly among young men aged 16 and 17. The vaccine currently only has emergency use authorization for children aged 12 to 15.
The company is also studying the vaccine in even younger age groups, including ages 2 to 5 and six months to age 2. However, those trials have not yet been completed. They are looking at children in more than 90 locations in the U.S., Spain, Poland and Finland, some of whom have previously been infected with the virus and others who have not. Johnson & Johnson and Moderna have also been studying their vaccines in children but neither has completed its research.
Despite the report’s finding, it appears that the recent return to school and controversy over mask wearing among students will be used to justify a push to line children up for this potentially dangerous vaccine.
Sources for this article include:
Please contact us for more information.
