Monday, September 13, 2021

Global USA An article appeared today in The Lancet written by Phil Krause, Marion Gruber (FDA) and people from WHO. It was a bit of a revolt on the part of the FDA and WHO who wrote in the article that they do not believe there is enough scientific evidence to do boosters . This is clearly sour grapes on the part of the FDA who feel that they are being pressured to approve boosters. However, if they look at the data from the CDC as well as from Israel it will be very clear that boosters are needed and greatly enhanced the waning response from the original vaccine. Janet Woodcock is very upset that the FDA people did this without clearing the article through the usual channels. There seems to be a couple of camps forming now with one feeling they should not be boosters , mostly because the developing world does not have easy access to vaccines. I have been stressing that it is possible to do both , namely, you can provide boosts for your own citizens at the same time as providing doses of vaccine to low and middle income countries. In this regard the USA is making major contributions to getting doses to the developing world. This includes already distributing 130 million doses to 90 countries and providing 500 million doses between now and the first half of 2022. In addition we have given $4 billion to CoVAX. Furthermore, I am working with Jeff and the White House to plan a PEPFAR-like program to get doses to the developing world PRESS: Taped “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah – to air tomorrow; Newsy TV Interview;