Source: LewRockwell.com
“Why the Rush for Toddler Vaccines?” asks Wall Street Journal editorial board member Allysia Finley in a July 4, 2022, op-ed.1 Indeed, many are asking that same question, and I’m glad the legacy media’s WSJ had the courage to print it.
In the last days of June 2022, the United States became the first country in the world to grant emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID jabs for toddlers as young as 6 months.
The Food and Drug Administration issued the EUA June 17,2 and the very next day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all toddlers get the shot as soon as possible.3 President Biden called it “a very historic milestone, a monumental step forward.”4 But is it?
“COVID was clearly a health emergency for adults in 2020. By contrast, the urgency now feels political,” Finley writes.5 “In fact, we don’t know if the vaccines are safe and effective. The rushed FDA action was based on extremely weak evidence.
It’s one thing to show regulatory flexibility during an emergency. But for children, COVID isn’t an emergency. The FDA bent its standards to an unusual degree and brushed aside troubling evidence that warrants more investigation.”
Another person who thinks the EUA of the COVID shot for infants is part of political theater is Toby Rogers, Ph.D. In the video above, he discusses the authorization process — which he watched live — with “Against the Wind” host Paul Thomas. Rogers reveals how the FDA and CDC “trampled scientific norms, ran roughshod over proper methods and abandoned science.” He tells Thomas:
“What you want from a process like this is good science — having hard conversations and sifting through evidence of signals and noises in order to make good decisions on behalf of the country. What you get instead is politics — getting products across the line no matter what.”
COVID Is Inconsequential for Young Children
Finley points out that only 209 children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years have died from COVID, per CDC data.6 She uses the word “from,” but the evidence suggests most children die “with” COVID and from other serious health conditions such as cancer.7,8,9
That said, Finley does note that the two children in Pfizer’s pediatric trial who developed the most serious infections “also tested positive for other viruses,” so “it’s possible that many hospitalizations attributed to COVID this winter were actually instigated or exacerbated by other viruses.”
Another telling statistic is that the number of toddlers hospitalized with COVID between October 2020 and September 2021 was about half the total number of toddlers hospitalized with influenza the previous winter.10 That data, again, comes from the CDC, so clearly, they’re fully aware of how the COVID risk compares to other common infections.
Shots Don’t Work Well in Young Children
Finley then goes on to discuss effectiveness, noting that while the shots initially seemed to offer robust protection for adults, the same cannot be said for children. The Moderna shot was only 51% effective against symptomatic Omicron infection in 6-month-olds to 2-year-olds, and a mere 37% effective in 2- to 5-year-olds….