Protect Their Future Decries FDA Decision to Deny Children Safe Vaccine

February 11, 2022 - Protect Their Future, an advocacy group of physicians, parents and activists released a statement regarding the FDA’s decision to delay Pfizer-BioNTech’s submission for a two dose regimen for children under 5:

Today’s announcement is a travesty for millions of families and children across the country. mRNA vaccines have been proven to be safe for children, and withholding them during the pandemic is unconscionable. How many more child deaths, neurological effects, and lifelong complications will the FDA be willing to accept as they deny millions of children a safe form of protection from a virus that has ravaged our communities and families for almost two years?

Throughout the pandemic, our health leaders have been unwilling to share the data and reasoning behind their evaluation process. They need to be transparent in order to maintain public trust. Today, the FDA owes the data from the Pfizer trials to the millions of families they gave false hope to. They owe it to the medical and parent community to be transparent on what caused their decision to offer a safe vaccine to children and then abruptly deny it. They also owe millions of parents a viable pathway to vaccinate their children now, especially as mitigation measures are rolled back across the country.

Our health leaders need to put children first. They need to protect families that are the most vulnerable. During a time when states are discussing removing mask mandates, our health leaders are denying young children the most effective form of protection from Covid: proven, life-saving mRNA vaccines. Children cannot continue being collateral damage of a failed health system.

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About Protecting Their Future: 

We are a grassroots group of physicians, parents and activists advocating on behalf of our young children and patients to have access to COVID-19 vaccines as the pandemic rages on. As parents, we have waited patiently for our kids to be protected while the rest of the country seems to have put the pandemic behind them. Omicron is the most infectious of all variants to date and early reports are showing potential increased hospitalization in children under 5. With nearly 6,000 cases of MIS-C in children and 1,000 kids who have died of COVID-19 kids under 18, we need to do all we can as parents to protect our children. We currently have the data and science, but bureaucratic and procedural red tape is leaving young children unprotected. We need that to change. We need the FDA and regulatory agencies to PUT KIDS FIRST and allow parents the option to protect their children with a safe and effective vaccine.

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