Physician Coalition Demands FDA Take Urgent Action to Make COVID-19 Vaccines Available to Children Under 5

While the science has proven to be safe, bureaucratic red tape is delaying vaccine access to children

January 20, 2022 — A coalition of nearly 250 doctors sent a letter to FDA Acting Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock today demanding urgent access to COVID-19 vaccines to children under 5 years of age. While signing on in their individual capacity, signatories represent communities from across the country and are serving at a diverse array of institutions such as Brooke Army Medical Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory Healthcare, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Stanford University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Colorado, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, UCLA Health, Cook Children's Medical Center and NYC Health + Hospitals.  The letter was organized by Protecting Their Future, a grassroots group comprised of physicians, parents and advocates committed to bringing vaccine access to children under 5.

“As a pediatrician and mother of young children, it is immensely frustrating to see our youngest denied the same protection the rest of the country has access to,” said Dr. Kate Matthias, who helped organize the letter through the group Protecting Their Future.  “We have the science. We have the data. These vaccines have shown a high safety profile. But red tape is preventing pediatricians from offering protection to their youngest patients. Meanwhile, parents are being forced to make impossible choices for their families. At this point in the pandemic, there is no reason we should be seeing young patients at the current levels in our hospitals. This is a travesty and our leadership needs to take urgent action to protect our youngest.” 

The letter argues that the current science supports immediate vaccine access to children under 5, but procedural red tape is leaving our youngest children unprotected even as Omicron is surging and sending record numbers of young children to the hospital. 

The coalition offers several solutions to cut  the red tape and safely provide vaccines to children under 5. These include making it possible for pediatricians to prescribe the vaccine off-label. Another option is to  remove the age-deescalation barrier so that doses that are already proven to be safe and effective for younger age groups can move forward in the approval process.

COVID-19 is a serious issue for children, currently driving record hospitalizations for kids under 5. Approximately 1,000 kids have already died from the virus in the US, 250 of them under 5 years old, and thousands have been hospitalized for severe illness. Among these complications is the life-threatening multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), whose frequency we know from recent studies could be reduced with vaccination. Furthermore, long COVID, which can have debilitating neurocognitive and physical effects, is still being studied and may be common in children." COVID-19 has also been associated with the development of Type 1 Diabetes. 

“Every hospitalization, medical complication, death and case of MIS-C that occurs in a child under five due to COVID-19 at this point in the pandemic is a travesty that could have been prevented,” states the letter. “We have the technology and science to protect our children, yet we have not made their protection our number one priority. This must change immediately. We implore you. Please don’t make us wait any longer to protect our children.”

Currently, children under 5 are the only category of individuals in the United States without access to COVID-19 vaccines. As the pandemic rages on, and vaccine access continues to see delays, parents and physicians of young children are calling for urgent action. Parents and loved ones of young children can sign a petition here to demand leadership to make vaccines accessible to children under 5.

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.

Join us on Facebook at Protecting Their Future.