FDA panel recommends a booster shot of Johnson & Johnson vaccine for people 18 and older
Source: Washington Post
A panel of outside experts advised the Food and Drug Administration on Friday to authorize a booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine for people 18 and older, at least 2 months after the first shot. The unanimous recommendation will now be taken up by the FDA, which is expected to make a decision within days — a decision that will clarify the path forward for the 14 million people in the United States who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, many of whom have felt left behind.
With many more people vaccinated with messenger RNA vaccines, there have been far more studies of the real-world performance of those vaccines, and the companies that make those vaccines — Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — have pushed more aggressively toward boosters. The vote was in favor of the Johnson & Johnson booster, despite experts’ hesitation about the “scant” amount of data. There were only 17 people included in an analysis of the effect of boosting people after six months.
Johnson & Johnson recipients are a small fraction of the nation’s vaccinated population, and they received a vaccine that provides less complete protection against infection than the messenger RNA vaccines. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis showed that rates of covid-19 and deaths were significantly lower for people vaccinated with any of the three vaccines available in the United States. But the analysis found that while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine offered a strong shield of protection, it was somewhat weaker than the other products.
Another recent study found that all three vaccines were protective against hospitalization, but that Johnson & Johnson offered the weakest protection — 71 percent, compared with 93 percent protective for Moderna and 88 percent protective for Pfizer-BioNTech. “We have shown how the [Johnson & Johnson] covid-19 vaccine could help the U.S. further protect individuals from covid-19, by optimizing immune responses, increasing protection from symptomatic infection, preparing for future variants of concern and potentially helping to reduce transmission,” said Johan Van Hoof, global therapeutic area head of vaccines for Janssen, a division of Johnson & Johnson.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/15/johnson-and-johnson-booster-shot-fda/
They are on break at the moment and ready to discuss mix and match.
(note - the original question was to have a "1a and 1b" (if/then) part but they opted to just do the general question for the vote)
= new reply since forum marked as read
The NIH mix/match presentation (slide deck) can be reviewed here (PDF) - https://www.fda.gov/media/153128/download
They haven't yet approved doing that however. Remember that the only vaccine has "full approved" (Biologic License Agreement) is Pfizer's, where the others are still under EUA. In fact as I type this, one of the members doesn't feel there should even be an EUA to "mix/match" - it's more to confirm whether it is safe to do so or not. And he's now comparing it to how they change the flu vaccine every year.
It is highly highly unusual that the general public gets to see the "sausage-making" of vaccines (just like watching Congress going through the markups and "sausage-making" to draft bills). It's because of the severity of this pandemic that we are even seeing this kind of news coverage.
And congrats on the 9,000!! 
