FDA does not recommend ‘taking things into your own hands’ regarding Covid-19 vaccine boosters, says top agency official

By Sarah Braner and Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the US Food and Drug Administration, said on Tuesday that the “FDA does not recommend taking things into your own hands” regarding Covid-19 vaccine booster shots.

“You can see all from looking at the news that there are people and the jurisdictions that are actually taking things into their own hands … FDA does not recommend taking things into your own hands,” said Marks during a discussion hosted by the Covid-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project briefing.

“It’s actually not something you’re supposed to do under emergency use authorization,” he said.

Currently, the FDA and the US Centers for Disease Control have no recommendation for booster shots.

US health officials maintain there is no data that indicates the need to do so. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health told CNN on Tuesday, “At the present time, though, the data in the United States does not indicate that that’s necessary.”

On Tuesday, the San Francisco Department of Public Health announced that they will be providing people who received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine with a supplemental dose of an mRNA vaccine, either Pfizer or Moderna.

They will be providing these supplemental doses to those who have consulted with their doctor beforehand.

The health department maintains that it aligns with the CDC and FDA. “We are not recommending, we are accommodating requests,” Dr. Naveena Bobba, deputy director of health for the city’s public health department, said during a media briefing Tuesday.

“We have gotten a few requests based on patients talking to their physicians and that’s why we are allowing for the accommodation.”

The-CNN-Wire
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