The Food and Drug Administration late Monday shot down an idea floated by a top Trump administration vaccine official who proposed halving doses of the Moderna vaccine saying that the proposal to stretch the Moderna vaccine was “premature and not rooted solidly in the available science.”
The FDA insisted that any changes to the vaccine regimen would require research in additional clinical trials before being approved or adopted noting that sudden ad hoc adjustments “run a significant risk of placing public health at risk, undermining the historic vaccination efforts to protect the population from COVID-19.”
Trumpsters: “What if we just give the one dose regimen to people in the inner cities? You know…those people.”
Slaoui suggested on Sunday that Moderna’s clinical trial data revealed that people between the ages of 18 and 55 who received two 50-microgram doses showed an “identical immune response” to the two required 100-microgram doses.
Slaoui has always struck me as a kind of science “talk show host”.
The other thing about this fscking idiotic suggestion is that there’s no evidence vaccine quantity is on the critical path for getting people vaccinated. We haven’t shipped the vaccine we have, and we haven’t done the planning or the funding to get mass-vaccination sites in place. (Where “we”, alas, means the criminally insane trump administration that still legally represents us.) And that’s before you get to the issues of redoing every bleeping protocol and following everyone who gets the altered dose to make sure it does work. Or to find out it doesn’t, and you don’t know whether you can safely re-vaccinate any of those millions of people.
The “Nigerian Vaccine Princes” are out and about.
The Food and Drug Administration late Monday shot down an idea floated by a top Trump administration vaccine official who proposed halving doses of the Moderna vaccine.
Halving the vaccine is the kind of suggestion I expect from people who believe giving the shot is no different from administering a placebo: something to get people to behave in the way that you want, regardless of the actual risk to themselves.
It fits perfectly with this administration’s attitude towards the common weal.
I hope prosecutors nail them to the wall for everything they can, including jaywalking.
top Trump administration vaccine official … proposed halving doses of the Moderna vaccine.
Typical Trumponomics: supply too small? Cut the distribution [rather than ramp up production].
Won’t that only treat half of the hoax?
We don’t need no stinkin’ science.
When I first heard of this proposal, it struck me as half-assed.
What’s next? Dilute it with ovaltine?
The most important question not being asked: Will a half dose still change our DNA? 
No, bUt It tUrNs fRogs BiSexUal.
The CDC says that here in AZ we have the highest rate of new infection in the nation, surpassing even California. And yet, we have one of the slowest roll-outs of the vaccine. Things are going to improve as people figure out the best ways to get this done, but the fact that we have all had this long to plan for the day a vaccine became available and we have already fallen face first is discouraging.
Call it what you want, the Peter Principle, the Dunning-Kruger effect, or just plain bad governance. We are not an impressive nation, and it feels like we have been performing a 4 year pratfall in front of the world and we still have multiple flights of stairs and banana peels to go.
The thing we have to keep in mind is that vaccines are one of the few things we do to healthy people; everything else is done to correct something that has gone wrong. Consequently, safety is the first consideration. We can “assume” that some actions would logically be safe (and effective) but short of actually conducting the study, there is no way to know and anything less rolls the dice with public health. Thus, boosting with a different vaccine formulation, changing the boosting schedule, or altering the dose is irresponsible and potentially dangerous. Plus, it gambles with public confidence if, for instance, individuals immunized with a half-dose are not as well protected (e.g., duration) as those immunized with a full dose. We will not know that answer for months after the immunizations are given and we have no path forward if that is the case - that is, we will not have examined the safety or efficacy of a third dose with the same or a different vaccine. I applaud the FDA’s caution on this issue.
Half a hoax is better than no hoax?
What most people in America “know” about the law comes from Judge Judy, what they “know” about medicine comes from Dr. Oz, and what they “know” about science comes from the endless stream of bullshit artists that roll through right wing media and always have the “facts” that prove global warming doesn’t exist and pollution is good for you.
It would be sad if it wasn’t already tragic.
But in most clinical trials, they do vary the dose and vary the time between doses. While the numbers are not huge, there are some small numbers to go by. Granted, the Covishield vaccine half dose was a dosage error, but they have subsequently experimented with various dosages. And they claimed to have found the perfect dosing regimen.
Added:
And the phase 3 trials are ongoing. They are still getting more data and trying different things as time passes. Of course we’re not going to know what they doing until they release it to the public. Some parts of it may never be made public.
The idea of providing half of the vaccine dosage is half-assed, half-brained and child-like thinking until there is scientific proof of the needed efficacy. I assume the idea was thought up by some anti-science Trumplethinskin fucking moron who doesn’t know the difference between a hoax and a lie, and is certainly incapable of thinking logically while supporting a scientific process.
I’ve said it before and I mean it. There is not enough piano wire. The wood chippers are going to need to be running 24/7 for months to process those who have caused this hell.
Georgia, I hope you can show us all that sanity is going to prevail. The fascists and their supporters must be crushed.