Juno News - November 07, 2021


Facts are needed in discussion about kids and COVID-19 vaccine


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

181.44687

Word Count

770

Sentence Count

31


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I'm finding it very concerning how the public conversation around kids and COVID-19 vaccines
00:00:10.780 has really gotten away from the basic facts of not just the data out there on COVID-19, but
00:00:17.480 what actual regulatory bodies, what the pharmaceutical companies are even saying
00:00:23.060 themselves. So now in the United States, they have just started, just a couple days ago,
00:00:27.180 started vaccinating the five to 11 year old cohort. And there are some jurisdictions in the
00:00:32.800 U.S. that are already talking about making it mandatory for five to 11 year olds, for the
00:00:37.080 school system, for various activities. I know in Canada, there are people very excited about the
00:00:41.580 issue and some people talking about whether or not they want to extend the vaccine passport to that.
00:00:46.540 Now, previously I've written about, Candace Malcolm wrote about, we talked about the issue of what the
00:00:51.680 actual data shows around kids and COVID-19. And a lot of pediatricians stepping forward to say,
00:00:57.180 well, hold on, if there's any silver lining to all of this, all of this stuff that's happened in the
00:01:01.420 past year and a half, it's that COVID-19 thankfully has proven to not be anywhere near as serious in
00:01:06.480 kids as we first feared. That's what the president and CEO of Sick Kids Hospital said to me when I was
00:01:10.920 speaking to him a number of months ago. And actually the data shows that COVID-19 is even less severe in
00:01:16.900 kids than influenza is in kids. But leave all of that behind. Let's talk about Pfizer's submission data
00:01:24.680 that they put forward to the FDA seeking approval for this drug for 5 to 11 year olds. What did the
00:01:32.700 manufacturer of it actually have to say? And Pfizer actually, in their briefing documents,
00:01:39.200 they say that the vaccine for kids should depend on incident rates in the neighborhoods. That incident
00:01:47.280 rates will determine the usefulness and the need for all of this. So Pfizer themselves,
00:01:53.280 they're not even flat out saying that all kids need to get this vaccine. And of course, Pfizer is the
00:02:00.700 advocate of selling the drug and getting it out there. And they're the ones who are going to put
00:02:04.540 it out in the most favorable light. Now they put out some risk benefit scenarios because there's a lot
00:02:09.920 of concerns about myocarditis in youth. And a lot of people would like to just kind of ignore those
00:02:15.960 concerns. But those concerns are very valid. Experts talking about them, governments issuing reports on
00:02:20.580 them and Pfizer acknowledging the issue in their submission and actually looking at different
00:02:25.380 scenarios. And one thing that's actually interesting is they present different cost benefit scenarios
00:02:30.400 for the benefit of vaccinating 5 to 11 year olds. And in one of their slides, they actually have a
00:02:36.820 scenario where in June 2021, based on the incidence rate of COVID among kids and the number of hospitalizations,
00:02:43.640 they actually say that in June 2021, there would have been if I guess they were doing mass vaccination
00:02:49.520 at that time, more kids hospitalizations for myocarditis related to the vaccine, then there
00:02:56.700 would have been kids hospitalizations for COVID-19. Now they lay out five scenarios. And that's the only
00:03:03.220 scenario that they themselves, the marketer of the drug, say that the vaccine side effects would be worse
00:03:09.340 than the benefits of the vaccine. But it's very interesting that again, in the public conversation, I think
00:03:15.420 there's a lot of people who don't even see that as being within the realm of possibility. And yet, the very
00:03:21.640 manufacturer of the drug in their own submission to the FDA to the US, they lay out a very scenario where that
00:03:30.440 indeed can happen. And then they go on to conclude that they feel in other scenarios, high transmission scenarios,
00:03:35.260 that's not the case, and so on and so forth. But the very fact that they present that one scenario, I mean,
00:03:40.080 that should be eye opening for those people who on Twitter and elsewhere are saying all kids must get
00:03:46.340 it everywhere in all circumstances, when Pfizer itself is not saying that, and the people in the FDA
00:03:51.840 who did eventually approve the drug, they themselves are not even saying that. So if I had to give one
00:03:59.220 message at this moment, based on all the reading I've been doing and speaking with pediatricians,
00:04:02.780 it's that I really hope there's people out there who acknowledge there's a lot of nuance to the issue
00:04:08.120 right now. And it's nuance that I think parents and all people would be very wise to read about
00:04:13.340 and to pick up on.