ATLANTA — The new board of vaccine advisers to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declined Friday to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to everyone.
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Until now, the vaccinations had been routinely provided to nearly all Americans who wanted them. Channel 2’s Richard Elliot said it was a close vote, but the committee did not vote to require a prescription.
The Food and Drug Administration recently put new restrictions on this year’s shots from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, reserving them for people over 65 or younger ones who are deemed at higher risk from the virus.
In a series of votes, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices didn’t specifically recommend vaccination but said people could make individual decisions.
The panel also urged the CDC to adopt stronger language around the supposed risks of vaccination, an idea that received pushback from outside medical groups who said the shots had a proven safety record.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy had recently fired most of the committee members and replaces them with people more in line with his controversial views on vaccines.
Dr. Jodie Guest of the Emory University School of Public Health insisted the vaccines are safe but acknowledged there are risks, as there are risks with every vaccine.
She says the risk of getting COVID and the complications from it are far worse and far more likely than any potential risk from the vaccine.
“It is safer to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and not get the virus than it is, there are concerns about receiving it,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to the report.
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