On Thursday, Oct. 14, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee unanimously recommended a Moderna COVID-19 booster vaccine for people 65 and older and younger adults at high-risk of serious disease or complications from their jobs or medical conditions.
The FDA will now decide if it follows the recommendations of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
CNBC reports that although the FDA may not always follow the recommendations of the committee, they do so often, as CNBC reported. After the FDA's final decision, which can take days, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee will vote.
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CNBC reports that booster shots will be available to those who have received Moderna vaccines more than six months ago if the CDC panel recommends approval.
A few weeks ago, booster shots for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccination were approved to the same groups. If approved, the Moderna booster shots would contain half the amount of the two Moderna shots that were given in the original series.
CNN reported that although all 19 members of this committee recommended boosters for their patients, CNN reported that some members didn't believe Moderna's data was convincing that booster shots increase protection or were necessary. "The data aren't perfect, but these are extraordinary times so we have to work within imperfect data," Dr. Eric Rubin (editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine) and professor at Harvard T.H. CNN reports that Chan School of Public Health stated these words.
The FDA advisory committee will vote on Friday, Oct. 15, whether to recommend a booster shot to the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccination, which is the third COVID-19-approved vaccine in the United States, according to The New York Times.
Original publication on Live Science
