FDA official overruled scientists on wide access to COVID shots

Memos released in recent days by the Food and Drug Administration show that the agency’s vaccine chief overruled staff scientists who favored widespread access to COVID shots, setting off a firestorm of criticism from lawmakers, state officials and doctors.

Agency staff members had concluded that the FDA should allow a wide range of age groups to receive the vaccines, citing high hospitalization rates among young children with COVID and saying that the virus’s evolution is “complex and remains unpredictable.”

But Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency official in charge of vaccines and gene therapies at the FDA, disagreed, overriding those scientists and deciding to issue very narrow eligibility limits.

The FDA last week said that no one younger than 65 was eligible to receive the COVID vaccines