President Joe Biden’s comments that all Americans will “likely” be advised to get a new COVID vaccine as new variants spread through the country are “irresponsible,” according to Stanford University Professor of Medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
“I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress, a request for additional funding for a new vaccine—that is necessary, that works,” Mr. Biden told reporters in South Lake Tahoe, California, on Aug. 25.
“And tentatively, not decided finally yet, tentatively it is recommended—it is likely to be recommended—that everybody get it, no matter whether they got it before,” he added.
Since early July, COVID-19 hospitalizations have been on the rise domestically, with three new variants of the disease spreading across the country. The uptick has resulted in some businesses, schools, and hospitals reinstating mask mandates.
Multiple drug companies, including Pfizer, Novavax, and Moderna, have introduced new vaccines they say will be effective against the EG.5, or ERIS, variant of COVID-19.
“It never occurred to me that an American president would be the number one spokesperson for a pharmaceutical company, but here we are,” Dr. Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times.
“It’s irresponsible to make this kind of public health advice for the entire American public in the absence of excellent randomized trial evidence, which has not been produced by the pharmaceutical companies,” he added.
“The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] never asked for them to produce them,” Dr. Bhattacharya said, referring to vaccines targeting the new COVID variants.
The Standard professor said that authorities are incorrectly treating COVID booster shots ” just like the flu vaccine, that you just update it from year to year.”
But, in contrast with the COVID-19 injections, for flu vaccines “there’s a long track record where the safety record of the vaccine is understood,” Dr. Bhattacharya said.
“Not requiring randomized trial evidence for updating the vaccine is irresponsible. It’s using a different mechanism than the flu vaccine. You can’t extend the experience you have with the flu vaccine to this vaccine,” he said.
By Nathan Worcester and Jan Jekielek
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