Kennedy might pull the COVID shot for kids: Good!

 by Vinay Prasad

The media coverage of changes around COVID-19 vaccination speaks poorly of the media. First make no mistake: the CDC should ABSOLUTELY remove COVID-19 from the Childhood Immunization schedule. It if stays, it shows the United States is a corrupt country: because there is no randomized evidence that kids ever benefit (in terms of real clinical outcomes) from this shot, and no evidence of any sort that a kid born today will need one in the future, and this shot earns some companies money.

Yet, in the article, I was disappointed to read this quote by Paul Offit, whom I generally respect.

“It’s like in Jurassic Park, when the Tyrannosaurus rex keeps checking where in the fence is a weakness,” said Paul Offit, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “He could do a lot of harm. I think he will do a lot of harm unless somebody stops him.”

Removing an unproven vaccine from the schedule, and one that is widely not accepted in Europe is not akin to letting a t-rex escape, but rather an important course correction. Medicine must admit when we make mistakes. If anything, removing unnecessary shots from the childhood schedule will bring focus to the necessary ones, such as measles.

Next, look at this. The CDC is finally contemplating what it should have done ALL ALONG. The COVID shot should only ever have been recommended to populations with a net benefit.

It is astonishing that this is remotely controversial. As you well, know, I, and some of my colleagues, have been saying this all along.

https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/kennedy-might-pull-the-covid-shot