British committee recommends no coronavirus vaccine for 12-15-year-olds – 09/07/2021 – Balance and Health

The Joint Committee on Immunization and Immunization (JCVI), one of the bodies that advises the British government, Recommended that healthy people between the ages of 12 and 15 are not Vaccine against covid, bearing in mind that the benefits of immunization for this group are highly uncertain and there is no conclusive evidence for an effect on transmission in the short to medium term.

In addition, the vaccine has less benefit for this age group, which naturally does not have a high risk of contracting Covid.

The agency says it chose a “precautionary approach” because there is a “small” risk in immunization: “There is increasingly strong evidence of an association between vaccination with mRNA vaccines and Myocarditis, a very rare adverse event“.

Known cases are still in Description process by scientistsBut it “may be dangerous,” according to the commission.

A similar precautionary government was taken The United States of America, which is considering starting immunization for this age group by the end of the year.

In Chile, more than 650,000 children over the age of 12 received a first dose, and the immunization was this week Approved from the age of 6 years. In Spain, children aged 12 to 17 were given a dose of Pfizer earlier this month, before the start of the study.

Also in the city of São Paulo, Young people aged 12-16 years without comorbidities This second vaccination started (6).

Overall, the UK commission considers the benefits of vaccination to be marginally greater than the known potential harms, but says there is a great deal of uncertainty about the scale of these potential harms.

According to the JVCI, given the accumulation of long-term data on adverse reactions, greater certainty may allow for the benefits and harms to be reconsidered. However, this data may take several months to become available.

Recommended for children with health problems

In previous evaluations, the JVCI has recommended application of Pfizer’s immunizing agent to both 16-17 year olds and children 12 15 year old with health problems, including type 1 diabetes, congenital heart disease, and sickle cell disease. disturbances.

Vaccination is also recommended for children aged 12 to 15 years with poorly controlled asthma (which requires constant use of medication), congenital malformations of the kidneys or gastrointestinal tract, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, Down syndrome, Among other groups of risks.

The committee emphasizes that its decisions take into account the impact on children only, without considering variables such as vaccine availability, future supply, costs associated with implementing a program, or broader social impacts, including educational benefits.

According to Eleanor Riley, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Edinburgh, the JVCI was not actually designed to assess other effects of general immunization on children, such as education, and policymakers should address these broader issues. British government policy.

Peter English, chair of the British Medical Association’s Public Health Medicine Committee, said the JVCI “appears to have deliberately left the door open for government to consider the indirect benefits of implementing vaccination in this age group”.

The British government fears that the start of the new school year will help form a fourth wave of pollution, especially after the British Ministry of Education waived preventive measures such as the use of masks and quarantine of contact groups.

Scientists criticize

Other scholars have criticized the commission’s cost/benefit calculation for not taking into account Covid long effect in children infected with the coronavirus.

According to Nathalie MacDermott of King’s College London, recent data from the CLoCK study show persistent and disabling symptoms more than 15 weeks after illness occur in 1 in 7 children and young adults.

Another problem, according to Professor Simon Clark of the University of Reading (England), is that JCVI has focused on the risks for the specific age group, not the risks to society in general.

“In the UK, children of all ages receive many vaccinations and it would be a mistake to think that they are only receiving them to protect their health,” he says, citing influenza and rubella immunization, which would prioritize preventing transmission for other groups.

“And high school boys are vaccinated against HPV, primarily to protect women from cervical cancer.”

For Clark, by not recommending universal vaccination for children ages 12 to 15, JCVI is expanding the chances of the virus spreading in the community.