Dr. Ben Carson recently made remarks against giving the Covid-19 vaccine to children. Carson is a former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and served as Housing and Urban Development Secretary under former President Donald Trump.
His comments come just as the FDA announced approval for the Pfizer vaccine in kids ages 5-11 years old. While appearing as a guest on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Carson insisted that we should “absolutely not” be vaccinating these kids.
“The fact of the matter is, the mortality rate for children from COVID-19 is 0.025, which is very similar to the rate for seasonal flu. “And we haven’t been for years and years going through all these things for seasonal flu.”
Carson noted that we do not yet know the long-term effects that this vaccine will have on children. He related the vaccines in kids to “a giant experiment.”
Dr. Ben Carson on vaccinating children: "This is really a giant experiment. Do we want to put our children at risk when we know that the risk of the disease to them is relatively small, but we don't know what the future [vaccine] risks are? Why would we do a thing like that?" 🔥 pic.twitter.com/jp5MK4iKXm
— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) October 31, 2021
Last Friday, the FDA announced emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use in children 5-11 years old. They shared in a statement, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet next week to discuss further clinical recommendations.” On Tuesday, the panel will meet to discuss the recommendation.
The doses for children aged 5-11 will consist of two doses separated by three weeks. The 12 years and older dosage are 30mcg, while the kids’ dose is 10mcg. Once the CDC approves the vaccine, health care providers can begin doling out the shot.
In the FDA’s findings, they noted:
“The vaccine’s safety was studied in approximately 3,100 children aged 5 through 11 who received the vaccine and no serious side effects have been detected in the ongoing study.”
The available data comes from 4,600 participants aged 5-11, where 3,100 received the vaccine and 1,538 received a placebo. A total of 1,444 participants were followed for at least two months after the second dose to ensure their safety.
The commonly reported side effects included arm soreness, redness, swelling, fatigue, headache, joint or muscle pain, fever, chills, nausea, and decreased appetite. The FDA added, “Side effects were generally mild to moderate in severity and occurred within two days after vaccination, and most went away within one to two days.”
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