Moderna or Pfizer are the best COVID vaccine boosters, according to a study
Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images Francine Oder/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
A booster dose of the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech vaccines could increase your immune response if you have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for your first COVID-19 shot. This is the result of Wednesday's highly anticipated study.
It doesn't really matter if you start with Moderna or Pfizer. As long as you get one the two mRNA boosters, it shouldn't matter.
458 volunteers participated in the study sponsored by National Institutes of Health. The volunteers were divided into nine groups, with approximately 50 each. The two-dose Moderna vaccine was given to the first person. They were then offered a second shot, a Pfizer shot, or a Johnson & Johnson booster shot four to six months later.
Two-dose Pfizer vaccine recipients received either another Pfizer shot, or a Moderna/J&J booster. People who received the J&J vaccine one-shot either got another shot of Pfizer or a Moderna booster.
Two weeks and four weeks later, the researchers measured antibody levels in all those individuals. These results were quite interesting.
The best immune responses were seen in people who received Moderna for their first shots and Moderna again for booster shots. Next came those who received Moderna boosted with Moderna and then Moderna enhanced by Pfizer. However, the difference in protection was likely too small for most individuals to make any significant impact.
It was found that those who received the J&J vaccine initially had the greatest response if they were given Moderna or Pfizer as a booster.
Nathaniel Landau from the New York University Grossman Medical School, a microbiologist, wrote to NPR that the results showed that the J&J booster after the first one-shot shot is not as effective as the boosters. These people had antibodies 10-20 times higher than those who received another J&J shot.
Scientists believe that the antibody increase could make a significant difference in how protected people will be. It's not clear how much better this is. The study was too small to know how likely people were to become infected with coronavirus and how severe the symptoms became. However, other research suggests that this type of antibody response may be enough to provide greater protection.
J&J, for its part, stated that the study "proved that a booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccination increases immune response regardless if a person has had a primary vaccine and confirm previous published data about the strong increase in immune response when the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccination is administered as a boost shot."
This study has some limitations that make it difficult to understand the data. First, all vaccines were tested by the researchers and not just the booster that Moderna seeks authorization for.
Researchers also measured antibody levels after the booster was administered. There is a possibility that antibody levels from J&J boosters could rise over time. Scientists believe that higher levels of antibody will result in greater protection. Although this is likely true, other factors, like immune system responses, may also play a part.
Researchers also stated that their study was not designed to compare the responses of different booster regimens. The data set is not large enough to draw conclusions about which one is better. The study results were published without peer review via the preprint server MedRxiv.
These results are not surprising. Similar results were seen in the U.K., where people who received the AstraZeneca vaccination (similar to the J&J shot) got boosters.
As part of a meeting to discuss Moderna and J&J's requests to approve booster doses of vaccines, advisers to Food and Drug Administration will review the data from the NIH Study.
For anyone over 65, or who is at high risk of severe disease due to their health, employment or living situation, the FDA has approved a booster dose for Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
