Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinations

Moved from USA news

From Medscape Today:

FDA Will Prioritize COVID Vaccine Approval for 65 and Older and High Risk

I'm not sure exactly what this means for people in the USA who are under 65 and aren't on the "high risk" list. (I'd bet money that people ME/CFS won't be on that list)

Does it mean that the COVID-19 vaccine is not recommended for anyone outside this group and won't be covered by insurance? (which is bad enough, this will make it expensive and maybe harder to find, more hoops to jump through vs. being available at most pharmacies)

Or does it mean that this vaccine will not be allowed at all if you're not in this group? (can't even have your doctor get an exception for you)

This quote makes it seem like it's the second option:
Peter Hotez, MD, professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, said that the FDA’s policy doesn’t seem to “consider the benefits of vaccinating vs long COVID,” and that there was “no clarity who determines risk factors such as ‘physical inactivity’.” And on choosing whether a healthy individual wants to be vaccinated, “now the decision is no longer between you and your doctor,” he wrote.
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And what if I'm a healthy person who is a caregiver to someone who is at high risk?
 
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ahimsa said:
From Medscape Today:

FDA Will Prioritize COVID Vaccine Approval for 65 and Older and High Risk

I'm not sure exactly what this means for people in the USA who are under 65 and aren't on the "high risk" list. (I'd bet money that people ME/CFS won't be on that list)

Does it mean that the COVID-19 vaccine is not recommended for anyone outside this group and won't be covered by insurance? (which is bad enough, this will make it expensive and maybe harder to find, more hoops to jump through vs. being available at most pharmacies)

Or does it mean that this vaccine will not be allowed at all if you're not in this group? (can't even have your doctor get an exception for you)

This quote makes it seem like it's the second option:


And what if I'm a healthy person who is a caregiver to someone who is at high risk?
Click to expand...


This is disturbing news. Pediatric deaths in the US from Covid are overwhelmingly in the unvaccinated. These include half (as I recall from Dr. Daniel Griffin's TWIV episodes) of the peds deaths in previously healthy kids.

This is the dismantling of vaccines in action. Reprehensible. I guess long covid doesn't exist either in children. I hope there is sufficient backlash to at least everyone have access to covid vaccines who want them, and at a reduced cost.
 
shak8 said:
This is disturbing news. Pediatric deaths in the US from Covid are overwhelmingly in the unvaccinated. These include half (as I recall from Dr. Daniel Griffin's TWIV episodes) of the peds deaths in previously healthy kids.

This is the dismantling of vaccines in action. Reprehensible. I guess long covid doesn't exist either in children. I hope there is sufficient backlash to at least everyone have access to covid vaccines who want them, and at a reduced cost.
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Here's a link to the public comment section of the FDA website with this regulaion. People in the USA can leave a comment here.

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FDA-2025-N-1146-0001

EDIT: I found this page with a template to help you create a comment:

https://peoplescdc.substack.com/p/vaccine-access-is-under-attack-act

Even if it's only 1-2 lines I think leaving a comment will help. You can make your comment anonymous, don't have to enter name/email.

Pushing back on other issues has ended up changing things. Don't think it's impossible to change things!
 
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Moved from USA news

NPR (National Public Radio) now has a story on this:

A stricter FDA policy for COVID vaccines could limit future access
NPR said:
Insurers may no longer pay for some vaccinations

"Secretary Kennedy had made it clear that he would never take vaccines away from anyone," Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview with NPR, referring to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the FDA. "This violates that in every way possible" because if insurance companies won't pay for the vaccine many people simply won't be able to afford it."

Others also note that the new approach doesn't take other issues into account, such as the fact that even younger, healthier people can get long COVID and that immunization can reduce that risk.

"That's very important because long COVID occurs in all age groups and even children and therefore I think COVID vaccines should be made available to all age groups," says Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Others at low risk themselves may want to get vaccinated to protect other people, such as older family members and those with weak immune systems, Hotez says.
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ahimsa said:
Here's a link to the public comment section of the FDA website with this regulaion. People in the USA can leave a comment here.

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FDA-2025-N-1146-0001

EDIT: I found this page with a template to help you create a comment:

https://peoplescdc.substack.com/p/vaccine-access-is-under-attack-act

Even if it's only 1-2 lines I think leaving a comment will help. You can make your comment anonymous, don't have to enter name/email.

Pushing back on other issues has ended up changing things. Don't think it's impossible to change things!
Click to expand...

The FDA officials responsible for the pronouncement wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2506929) that adults with the CDC risk factors of a poorer outcome would qualify for the next covid vaccine.

This CDC list (link in above article) includes depression and other mental illnesses, and obesity (BMI over 30--which probably includes 40 percent of US adults, smoking or former smoking, among a list of other factors.

Also, physical inactivity is considered a risk factor on the list. So....
 
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ahimsa said:
From Medscape Today:

FDA Will Prioritize COVID Vaccine Approval for 65 and Older and High Risk

I'm not sure exactly what this means for people in the USA who are under 65 and aren't on the "high risk" list. (I'd bet money that people ME/CFS won't be on that list)

Does it mean that the COVID-19 vaccine is not recommended for anyone outside this group and won't be covered by insurance? (which is bad enough, this will make it expensive and maybe harder to find, more hoops to jump through vs. being available at most pharmacies)

Or does it mean that this vaccine will not be allowed at all if you're not in this group? (can't even have your doctor get an exception for you)

This quote makes it seem like it's the second option:


And what if I'm a healthy person who is a caregiver to someone who is at high risk?
Click to expand...

TBH, I'm not sure this is much different from the current UK approach, except that I think the lower age limit is 75 here? My caree's GP, having read the stuff I sent her about ME, originally put her down as clinically vulnerable - but obviously she's not as high risk as someone who's immunosuppressed due to undergoing chemotherapy, say. She's not received an invitation for a Covid jab this time around, and I, her sole carer, haven't been offered one either. Children don't get the jab either as a rule, but I think that's because the benefit-to-risk ratio isn't as great. I believe Covid jabs probably are available privately if you want to pay for them, but I don't know to what extent you might be discouraged from having one if you don't meet the criteria.
 
Wits_End said:
TBH, I'm not sure this is much different from the current UK approach, except that I think the lower age limit is 75 here? My caree's GP, having read the stuff I sent her about ME, originally put her down as clinically vulnerable - but obviously she's not as high risk as someone who's immunosuppressed due to undergoing chemotherapy, say. She's not received an invitation for a Covid jab this time around, and I, her sole carer, haven't been offered one either. Children don't get the jab either as a rule, but I think that's because the benefit-to-risk ratio isn't as great. I believe Covid jabs probably are available privately if you want to pay for them, but I don't know to what extent you might be discouraged from having one if you don't meet the criteria.
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I am approaching seventy so don’t qualify on the basis of age for the current booster programme here in the UK. Although my GP had previously agreed to move me up one priority category, I don’t think that was enough to make me currently eligible.

Every now and again I make a half hearted attempt to find out about getting a further booster privately, but at present that seems to cost around £100 and be only available beyond my normal travelling range. My socialising is relatively restricted visiting a restaurant maybe one every six months, a shop maybe once a month and probably most risky a care home for the elderly once every two months. I don’t have many visitors other than my carers, and probably foolishly had slipped into not masking any more.

I have not so far had Covid and have had all the vaccines I was eligible for previously. I have no more home testing kits and no longer ask visitors to test in advance.

However I find myself without sufficient information to balance the ongoing risks of getting Covid against the energy costs and financial costs (including hiring a driver) of getting a booster privately.

(Added. I included full information to set out the equation in my own mind and this is not a request for anyone to advise for or against me personally getting a booster.)
 
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Mij said:
https://www.reuters.com/business/he...ion-covid-flu-combination-vaccine-2025-05-21/

Moderna has withdrawn its application for approval of its combined COVID-19 and influenza vaccine

Is this because it's more profitable to sell them separately?
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The FDA is putting unnecessary burdens on the approval process, demanding an entire new phase of RCTs as if it's a completely untested product. This is something RFK Jr is trying to implement across the board. For all vaccines. While also funding research to 'show' that vaccines cause autism. Well, alongside 'toxins' and lifestyle choices, which at this point share the same ideological roots.

The leadership of US medical science is literally the main gang of Koch bros who led the Great Barrington Declaration (which is a great propaganda coup in that Great Barrington is just some random town's name they chose because it made it sound important). Aside from RFK Jr, who is a total quack and fraud, they occupy the top posts at the FDA, NIH and CDC. All major proponents of herd immunity and immunity debt, all extremely hostile to Long Covid, which some of them have openly mocked for years.

Basically, US medical science is being shifted to the same overall ideology that is behind the psychobehavioral model that ruined everything for chronic illness: anti-science, dogmatic, greedy, and all about power for the sake of power. Basically, this is the shining moment for the biopsychosocial model of illness. They will get everything they want, and they will hate everything about it.
 
Don't know if anyone watched the interview with Kaitlin Collins and JFK Jr on CNN recently when she asked him about his pledge to find the cause of autism by September, and how he he extended the timeline to March of 2026. He went on about 'replicating studies' et and I wondered why he isn't talking about skin cancer awareness and prevention considering how tanned he is.
 
Mij said:
Don't know if anyone watched the interview with Kaitlin Collins and JFK Jr on CNN recently when she asked him about his pledge to find the cause of autism by September, and how he he extended the timeline to March of 2026. He went on about 'replicating studies' et and I wondered why he isn't talking about skin cancer awareness and prevention considering how tanned he is.
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Funny you should say that, the government funding bill they are trying to push forward in Congress repeals a tax on tanning beds.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyp...ain-big-beautiful-bill-burns-the-tanning-tax/

Although it's a bit of a funny question to ask about a pledge to find the cause of autism by some date, when he's already decided what it is, the timeline is just to get the "Imagine a world"-based medicine machine go brrr.
 
FDA approves Moderna's new COVID-19 vaccine.

The company's "next-generation" COVID-19 vaccine, mNexspike, was approved for adults 65 and older and younger people at risk of severe disease.
LINK
 
From News-Medical.net:

COVID boosters do not harm T-cell function in the vulnerable
Contrary to public concerns, receiving frequent COVID-19 booster vaccinations will not weaken the immune system, providing reassurance to vulnerable groups facing new variants.

A recent study published in Nature Communications examined the effect of repeated SARS-CoV-2 vaccination on T-cell exhaustion in both vulnerable older adults and the general healthy population in Canada.
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Direct link to study:

No evidence of immune exhaustion after repeated SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in vulnerable and healthy populations
 
If It's so serious then why aren't the provinces in Canada not paying for the two shots for EVERYONE? In my province they only pay for those 65 to 70 years old. I got shingles recently and I had severe pain for 4 months. Some provinces like B.C don't pay at all I'm told.
 
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