Tampa, Florida — When the Florida Department of Health released new guidelines this week suggesting that healthy children should not be vaccinated against the coronavirus vaccine, he cited several studies supporting that position.
However, at least four of the experts cited in the study state that their study was out of context. They said they disagreed with the conclusion of Florida surgeon General Joseph Ladapo that vaccines are more dangerous than viruses for healthy children.
Kathryn Edwards, a pediatric professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who co-authored one of the papers cited in the guidance, said:
Each of the three state-cited studies concluded that the vaccine was safe and effective. Florida health officials did not mention it in the guidance on page 2.
All four experts contacted by the Tampa Bay Times disagreed with this recommendation, emphasizing that the COVID-19 vaccine is the best way to prevent serious illness in children.
“You don’t just choose one sentence from one paper that agrees with what you want to say,” Edwards said. “That’s not what the health department is supposed to do.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, approximately 13,000 children under the age of 17 have been hospitalized in COVID-19 in Florida. More than 40 people have died. Only 22% of Florida children between the ages of 5 and 11 are vaccinated, the lowest percentage of eligible age groups in the state.
When asked about the researchers’ concerns, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said the authorities supported the recommendation.
“The researcher’s conclusion is the evaluation of the data,” Jeremy Redfern wrote in an email. “The general medical director does not agree.”
Redfern said Ladapo is both a doctor and a research scientist, and disagreements are a normal part of the scientific process.
Kauser Talat, a professor of international health at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-author of a paper cited by the Ministry of Health, said it might be true, but it does not justify Ladapo’s conclusions. do not have.
“There may be scientists out there who say the world is flat,” she said. “That doesn’t mean they’re right.”
Mark Sawyer, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said:
Sawyer expressed concern about the potential side effects of the vaccine at an October meeting of the Vaccine Advisory Board of the Food and Drug Administration, of which he is a member.
State guidance cites two sentences in which Sawyer expressed concern about the risk of myocarditis and myocardial swelling in some patients. He also questioned whether the number of hospitalizations prevented by the vaccine was overestimated.
But Sawyer said Florida’s leadership took his word out of context.
“You raise all possible concerns at these meetings,” he said.
Neither the Ministry of Health nor the Governor’s Office contacted the researchers cited in the report or the researchers whose citations were used as evidence in support of the recommendations, Redfern said.
Mr Sawyer said the citation would have told authorities that the citation was lacking in context and outdated if the state had contacted him.
According to the Ministry of Health, the risk of developing myocarditis is an important part of Florida’s new guidance.
To substantiate that advice, the state pointed out a single study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association earlier this year, with the highest incidence of post-vaccination myocarditis 12-17. I was an old boy.
However, Buddy Creech, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the Vanderbild Institute for Infectious Diseases, Immunology and Inflammation, who co-authored the study, argued that rare side effects should discourage parents from vaccination of their children. He said it was a mistake to do.
The most important thing to know about post-vaccinated myocarditis is that it is rare, tends to disappear without treatment, and does not appear to cause long-term damage.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 70 people will develop myocarditis for every 1 million vaccinations given to children aged 12 to 17 years. The reporting rate for children aged 5 to 11 years is significantly lower.
A study published in July 2021 estimated that 633 children aged 12 to 17 years developed myocarditis due to COVID-19 for every 1 million infections.
State guidance cites a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 2022 and concludes that “the risk of serious illness with COVID-19 is limited.” This paper studied the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine in nearly 2,300 children, but none had serious complications from COVID-19 infection.
However, the study was “not designed as an epidemiological study to determine the severity of COVID infections in children,” said Talat, an epidemiologist who co-authored the paper.
She said that only a few people who continued the study were infected with even COVID-19. She says, “They don’t use the results to judge the facts, they twist the results to fit what they want.”
State guidance also relies heavily on an unpeer-reviewed New York State Health Department paper, released as a preprint in February.
The study found that the vaccine quickly lost its ability to prevent infection in children. Within 7 weeks after the second dose, efficacy decreased to 51% in children aged 12 to 17 years and to 12% in children aged 5 to 11 years.
“Our study shows that infection prevention is less effective after a few weeks, but vaccines are 5-11 from serious illnesses and hospitalizations,” said Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Health. We will continue to provide strong protection for old children. “
He said New York state health officials strongly recommend vaccination of eligible children as the best precaution against COVID-19.
According to a recent study by the CDC, vaccination is more than 90% effective in preventing hospitalization of children aged 12 to 17 years in the first 5 months, and more than 73% thereafter. Studies have also found that booster doses provide more protection for eligible children.
According to Edwards, it’s understandable if parents are worried and confused about the best care for their children. “Here we need to explain the risks and benefits. We need to inform people.”
© 2022 Tampa Bay Times.Access to tampabay.com.. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
