While the United States is behind on vaccination, Pfizer has filed a vaccine authorization request for children 6 months to 4 years old. The emergency doctor and medical director at Doctissimo reacts to our microphone to this announcement.
Fewer than 2 in 3 Americans are fully immunized, but the United States is staying on course with its vaccine goal with a new announcement that is already controversial : the Pfizer laboratory has just deposited a request for vaccination authorization for children under 5 years olda request driven by the American Medicines Agency (FDA) which wishes to speed up the vaccination process.
Made public on Tuesday, February 1, the request for authorization concerns the last segment of the population hitherto not eligible for vaccination. If the request is approved, the vaccination of children from 6 months to 4 years will be carried out initially via two doses, then will increase to three dosesinjections that will be 10 times weaker than for adults: in order to limit side effects, these doses will contain 3 micrograms compared to 30 in adults. If the request is accepted, the vaccine could be available in children under 5 in the coming weeks and concern 6% of the American populationor 19 million children.
“It all doesn’t make sense”
medical director of DoctissimoGerald Kierzek was quick to react to this new announcement on Twitter: “There, it is really no longer reasonable. Covid is a pathology of people at risk (> 65 years old, obese, immunocompromised), let’s protect / vaccinate these people at risk (targeted strategy)”. At our microphone, the emergency doctor did not hide his amazement concerning this request for authorization of vaccine on the very youngwhich is justified above all by the interest of the pharmaceutical giant in his eyes: “We can clearly see that here there is no longer any medical logic, we are really on something which is on the order of the industrialist who wants to expand his market, but it is not reasonable”. For him, the benefit/risk balance that must be studied for any vaccine is disappointing here :
We see that in children, the risk is extremely low and not at all in favor of mass vaccination. The immediate benefit/risk balance is unfavorable if only because there is no benefit ; second, what is the notion of risk? There are still cases of myocarditis, pericarditis etc, which are complications related to the vaccine, so there too it tips the wrong side of the scales. And third, we don’t have no elements on the medium and long term in children with an immature immune system. We are therefore on a benefit/risk balance which is not favorable, even which is unfavourable.
Read also: Excluded. Gerald Kierzek on Emmanuel Macron’s statement: “Stigmatizing the unvaccinated is of no interest”
Gérald Kierzek wishes to recall on this subject the first precautionary principle in medicinewhich for him is not respected in this desire to vaccinate children under 5, in the context of a much less virulent Omicron variant: “the principle primum non nocere must really govern any decision: first, do no harm. When you have zero risk of the disease, it is not worth going to take even the most minimal risk of myocarditis or pericarditis. Public decision-making must really be guided by two major principles – the precautionary principle and the precautionary principle – for the medium and long term. Because very smart who could say what it will give in the medium and long term, especially in children, the immune system of children being under construction”.
For the emergency physician in favor of natural immunity, this desire to include this segment of the population in the vaccination campaign is absurd in view of the immunological reality : “All that doesn’t make sense either because children could protect us from this epidemic: I have often said that we have completely neglected natural immunity, which is much stronger than post-vaccination immunity. It lasts, it is solid. Children still have the chance not to develop serious forms, to contaminate themselves and to produce antibodies: it’s great, let’s bet on this natural immunity! Remember also that we are in the context of the Omicron virus which is benign, it is not as if it were Ebola. We’ve lost our minds for two years with this story: it’s one of the most fragile diseases and we have to protect the most fragile, and children aren’t the most fragile.”.
Read also: Covid-19: “It should not be a priority to vaccinate children” according to Dr Kierzek
An American initiative soon to be followed in France?
The question today is: Will the American example be followed and will it trigger the same impulse in Europe? For Gérald Kierzek, we are not there yet, especially since France and the United States are not comparable in many respects: “For now, the United States is in the authorization phase, so nothing is certain in terms of authorization. It’s difficult to compare France and the United States because the prevalence of obesity is different. Among children and teenagers, there is a lot of obesity, so among children under 12, why not vaccinate, but among babies, toddlers, it makes no sense. So on the one hand, the epidemiological reality is not the same, in terms of obesity, but I also think that social acceptability is not the same: in France, the yellow line not to be crossed, c is really the obligation to vaccinate in children”.