Chaot­ic ad­comm sees Pfiz­er/BioN­Tech boost­ers re­ject­ed for gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, but rec­om­mend­ed for old­er and high-risk pop­u­la­tions

With just days be­fore Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s Covid-19 boost­er roll­out is set to go in­to ef­fect, an FDA ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee ap­peared on the verge of not rec­om­mend­ing boost­ers for any­one in the US be­fore a last-minute change of word­ing laid the ground­work for old­er adults to have ac­cess to a third dose.

The FDA’s ad­comm on Vac­cines and Re­lat­ed Bi­o­log­i­cal Prod­ucts (VRB­PAC) round­ly re­ject­ed Pfiz­er/BioN­Tech boost­er shots for all in­di­vid­u­als old­er than 16 by a 16-2 vote Fri­day af­ter­noon. Soon af­ter, how­ev­er, the agency posed com­mit­tee mem­bers a new ques­tion lim­it­ing boost­er use to the 65-and-old­er pop­u­la­tion and in­di­vid­u­als at high risk of dis­ease due to oc­cu­pa­tion­al ex­po­sure or co­mor­bidi­ties.

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