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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBREAKING: The FDA voted 16-2 against a third Pfizer booster shot for Americans 16 and older.
darn. I was hoping to get mine soon.
BrooklynDad_Defiant!
@mmpadellan
·
5m
BREAKING: The FDA voted 16-2 against a third Pfizer booster shot for Americans 16 and older.
Not enough data available for them to decide to approve
Link to tweet
?s=20
JohnSJ
(91,967 posts)It is also possible, though rare, that the FDA could over-rule the FDA panel
Response to JohnSJ (Reply #1)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
JohnSJ
(91,967 posts)high risk
Response to JohnSJ (Reply #8)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Dreampuff
(778 posts)Since a few a few of us here fall into the 65 and over category.
What about the reports coming out of Israel? They are a couple of months ahead of us and having a lot of breakthrough infection and are saying the antibodies have gotten very low on those who got their shot first?
JohnSJ
(91,967 posts)days ago
muriel_volestrangler
(101,160 posts)(apart from those with conditions that cause complications:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1438100712441974786.html
Link to tweet
Scrivener7
(50,774 posts)Hugin
(32,784 posts)That'll play right into the anti-vaxx narrative.
48656c6c6f20
(7,638 posts)And just got back from getting 3rd Pfizer. Seriously just about 20 minutes ago.
LisaL
(44,962 posts)Not going to wait for FDA to collect their so-called data. How long is that going to take?
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)LisaL
(44,962 posts)booster works. Israel is boosting everyone.
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)Treefrog
(4,170 posts)I think Ill wait on this.
Celerity
(42,674 posts)What We Actually Know About Waning Immunity
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/waning-immunity-not-crisis-right-now/619965/
Vaccines dont last forever. This is by design: Like many of the microbes they mimic, the contents of the shots stick around only as long as it takes the body to eliminate them, a tenure on the order of days, perhaps a few weeks. What does have staying power, though, is the immunological impression that vaccines leave behind. Defensive cells study decoy pathogens even as they purge them; the recollections that they form can last for years or decades after an injection. The learned response becomes a reflex, ingrained and automatic, a robust immune memory that far outlives the shot itself, Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told me. Thats what happens with the COVID-19 vaccines, and Ellebedy and others told me they expect the memory to remain with us for a while yet, staving off severe disease and death from the virus at extraordinary rates. That prediction might sound incompatible with recent reports of the declining effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, and the waning of immunity. According to the White House, well all need boosters very, very soon to fortify our crumbling defences. The past few weeks of news have made it seem as though were doomed to chase SARS-CoV-2 with shot after shot after shot, as if vaccine protections were slipping through our fingers like so much sand.
The reality of the situation is much more complicated than that. Despite some shifting numbers, neither our vaccines nor our immune systems are failing us, or even coming close. Vaccine effectiveness isnt a monolith, and neither is immunity. Staying safe from a virus depends on host and pathogen alike; a change in either can chip away at the barriers that separate the two without obliterating them, which is exactly what were seeing now. As the hyper-contagious Delta variant continues to blaze across the country and much of the world, more vaccinated people are encountering the virus and occasionally getting infected enough to trip a coronavirus test. But our shots are still guarding against disease and deaththe standard our shots were meant to meet, and the most crucial element of making the virus a much more manageable threat, Müge Çevik, a medical virologist at the University of St. Andrews, told me. We need to have much more realistic expectations of these vaccines and what they can teach our immune systems to do, Çevik said. The good news is, its quite a lot. Immune responses dont last forever. Theyre supposed to wane, and the fact that they do works to our advantage. The first time someone meets a virus or a vaccine, defensive cells must scramble. A wave of fast but imprecise fightersmembers of the innate immune systemrushes in to wall off the assailant, buying time for the bodys more sophisticated sharpshooters to gather their wits. This latter group, which makes up the bodys adaptive arm, takes several days to really fire up.
But the wait is worth it: After a couple of weeks, the blood is rife with antibodiesmolecules, made by B cells, that can sequester viruses outside cellsand aptly named killer T cells, which can blow up cells that have already been infected. Eventually, as the infectious threat passes, our immune response contracts; frontline B and T cells, no longer needed in their amped-up state, start to die off. Antibody levelsone of the easiest immune metrics to measureslip downward over the course of several months, before roughly levelling off. Thats perfectly normal, Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, told me. You have a big increase at the beginning, then a decline. Consider the alternative: If humans never quieted any of the immunological furore that follows infections and simply kept accumulating antibodies for every pathogen we came across, wed all have burst a long time ago. Even attempting to maintain that kind of immune reservoir would require so much energyI dont even know where youd keep all those cells, says Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington. A downtick in antibody levels can come with consequences. Antibodies are among the few immune actors capable of waylaying a virus before it infiltrates a cell; when present in high-enough amounts, they can quash a developing infection. But where a virus is abundant and speedy and antibodies are relatively scarce, the bodys defenses are much more liable to crack, which is why protection against infection will be the first to erode.
This issue might be especially pronounced after receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine, which is delivered into an arm muscle. Injected vaccines are ace at prompting the production of IgG antibodies in the blood; theyre less good at coaxing out the IgA antibodies that patrol the moist mucosal linings of the nose and mouth and corral respiratory viruses at their natural point of entry. IgG antibodies are good travellers and can eventually flock to the site of a growing infection. That takes time, though, and when fewer of them are bopping about, their eventual arrival may not be enough to pen the pathogen in place. Antibody levels will taper in the months following vaccination or infection, but that doesnt mean they plummet to zero, Bhattacharya told me. Although most of the B cells die off, some stick around in the bone marrow and keep churning out the virus-fighting molecules at more modest, but still detectable, levels. Though the life span of these long-lived B cells can vary, some studies have hinted that theyre capable of persisting as antibody factories for decades. Another population of immune cells, memory B cells, meanders around the body like sleeper agents, ready to resume making its antibodies whenever necessary. All of these B cells can continue to broaden and intensify their virus-vanquishing powers for months after a vaccine or pathogen leaves the body, in a sped-up form of antibody evolution. The quality of antibodies in the body improves over time, Bhattacharya said. It takes way fewer of them to protect you.
snip
frazzled
(18,402 posts)So theres no data for Moderna. Follow the science.
Demsrule86
(68,355 posts)I am not getting Covid again if I can help and the new variant may be more deadly for even the vaccinated.
Response to Demsrule86 (Reply #34)
USALiberal This message was self-deleted by its author.
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)48656c6c6f20
(7,638 posts)Now I'm not sure if I would have qualified.
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)PatSeg
(46,807 posts)Meanwhile we need to focus more on getting the unvaccinated vaccinated and to wear masks.
LisaL
(44,962 posts)Should we propose to dart them?
Hugin
(32,784 posts)It was tabled.
LisaL
(44,962 posts)Hugin
(32,784 posts)I'm not an expert by any means on anything and I'll readily admit to sometimes not being able to open a container on the perforations.
But, I in my ill informed state am curious to what more data is required for the boosters when the obvious result would be more antibodies? What else is there to know?
LisaL
(44,962 posts)unless infection lands one in the hospital, it's not really a big issue.
Hugin
(32,784 posts)I think if someone wants more antibodies and having more antibodies makes them more comfortable in a global pandemic they should be encouraged to do so.
I never realized the FDA was against home grown antibodies. I guess they want you to get the lab grown sort. Seems a little conflict-of-interest-y to me. Like someone's selling antibodies.
Fortunately, it would appear that President Biden is pro-more-free-antibodies.
Socal31
(2,484 posts)There is no substance that is zero risk.
PatSeg
(46,807 posts)that people who know more than we do, agree with you.
struggle4progress
(118,041 posts)PatSeg
(46,807 posts)but a lot of them will give in and get vaccinated when they realize they can't work, fly on an airplane, go to school, or do pretty much anything.
Darts is an idea though.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)I don't feel like me or my 82 year old mother being data points.
LisaL
(44,962 posts)I am fully boosted. They can go on and debate this for years.
Dreampuff
(778 posts)I have a routine doctor's visit next week and was planning on getting the flu shot since the prediction is a bad flu season is supposedly heading our way. I remember there being a few weeks of spacing the flu shot and coronavirus shot when they originally started giving the shot. It'd only be a few weeks later & I could get my third Pfizer shot.
I won't get the third shot without a recommendation from health professionals. I personally know a few people who have gone back for their third shot. I was told that Publix only requires that you show your vaccination card and they will give you a shot.
DFW
(54,058 posts)This being the EU, that's a pretty big "IF."
Pachamama
(16,875 posts)I have a few older family members who are going to be getting it as they start rolling it out.
DFW
(54,058 posts)The usual German bureaucracy. The Gesundheitsamt said to call my Hausartzt (he's in Dallas). So we called my wife's Hausartzt. He said he'll get back to us, doesn't know anything yet. Same useless confused bag of nothing they gave us in April about our first vaccinations ("maybe late August, maybe later" ) so we went to the USA and got our first shots in 72 hours of asking.
LisaL
(44,962 posts)At least the Pfizer's booster.
DFW
(54,058 posts)Germany is extremely slow and cumbersome when it comes to this kind of thing. If I need something like this in Dallas, I get it in less than 3 days. If I need it in Europe, I'm lucky if it's 3 months.
Pachamama
(16,875 posts)Meanwhile the Germans and the Israelis are moving ahead full steam on boosters.
Sadly, there will be more data and more cases and in a few months likely an additional variant spreading and then it will be clear that a booster is needed and that it should have started being given.
My prediction is that Moderna will get approval in next month and actually the future booster recommendations will be for heterologous vaccine boosters. (Ie if you had Pfizer for first two shots, your booster after 6-9 months will be Moderna.
central scrutinizer
(11,617 posts)I trusted the scientists before, I trust them now.
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)Treefrog
(4,170 posts)I wish I could do graphs.
I would be hilarious to see du go up and down on these things.
Celerity
(42,674 posts)DET
(1,266 posts)Please read this best selling book about the FDAs complicity in the Fen-Phen disaster twenty years ago before you criticize those of us who do not trust the FDA.
https://www.amazon.com/Dispensing-Truth-Companies-Dramatic-Fen-Phen/dp/0312253249
Its shocking.
Demsrule86
(68,355 posts)dawg
(10,610 posts)18-0 in favor of booster for 65+ and those at high risk.
peggysue2
(10,811 posts)That being said, I'm happy about the updated booster approval for 65+ age bracket and those with health issues.
I do think the Administration, the FDA and CDC need to get their messaging coordinated. This back and forth, thinking-out-loud approach isn't working. Just leaves to more confusion and fuels the meme that no one in power knows what they're talking about.
The only people who will love this announcement is the right-wing crazies. They'll love it for all the wrong reasons.
ColinC
(8,232 posts)Like those with autoimmune diseases and organ transplants, I believe.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Meowmee
(5,164 posts)Another stupid decision among many since the covid pandemic started.
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)The vaccine has proven to be harmless.
So why are they back tracking?
Dreampuff
(778 posts)I keep hearing news stories that are talking about all of the confusion, but President Biden just recently said he would like to have them out so people can get them 8 months after their last shot. This most recent decision is about boosters six months after the last shot. I'm sure they will continue updating us and will probably make a different decision in 2 months.
Dr. Fauci suggested it is best to not get them so close together unless one is older or immunocompromised or has a job or lifestyle where you are constantly in contact with others. He referred to people who are working in settings where customers are always in and out. He said you will get a bigger boost of antibodies if you wait until the proper time. Chuck Todd was interviewing him this morning.