Joe Biden’s COVID Vaccine Strategy: Shots for Kids, but Not Illegal Immigrants

COMMENTARY Public Health

Joe Biden’s COVID Vaccine Strategy: Shots for Kids, but Not Illegal Immigrants

Jul 6, 2022 3 min read

Commentary By

David Gortler

FDA and Health Care Policy Oversight Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

Lora Ries @lora_ries

Director, Border Security and Immigration Center

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continue to overreact to COVID-19.  Marko Geber / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

The FDA Advisory Committee approved a primary series for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for all children as young as 6 months old.

A federal judge has ordered the Biden administration to keep Title 42 authority in place for now, but the administration is appealing that order.

It keeps our border open to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, permits them to refuse vaccination, and then allows them to travel elsewhere in the country

The COVID-19 nightmare appears to be nearly over. Many people have chosen to ditch their masks and resume their pre-pandemic lives, either because they, like most Americans, have acquired natural immunity, or because they realize that those who do catch the currently predominant variant (regardless of vaccination status) usually suffer only mild symptoms.

Despite this reality, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continue to overreact to COVID-19.  This month alone, the FDA has pushed forward with three different COVID-19 vaccine actions.

First, the agency approved an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of a pharmacologically different “protein subunit” vaccine, but still only for the old, original (2019 Wuhan) version of COVID. The Novavax vaccine received an EUA recommendation from its advisory committee despite having the same serious cardiovascular safety concerns that exist with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

>>> Heritage Foundation Research on Coronavirus

Next, the FDA Advisory Committee approved a primary series for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for all children as young as 6 months old, despite children being at an extremely low risk. This action also effectively ignored studies proving natural immunity due to prior infections lasts for nearly two years, plus a federally-funded NIAID study showing that natural immunity is superior to vaccine-induced immunity. The bottom line is: children and adolescents never needed COVID-19 vaccines in the past, and certainly do not need them now. Nevertheless, the FDA is still going full speed ahead pushing more vaccines onto children, even picturing young kids on their homepage.

The United States alone has already accumulated a list of more than 830,000 reports of adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines, with substantially more adverse events reported worldwide. Moreover, a Harvard story shows that reported adverse events represent only 1–10 percent of actual adverse events. Despite the well-established risks, the FDA’s Advisory Committee approved both FDA EUA proposals in infants and kids.

While the FDA is operating like a dire COVID public health emergency still exists, the White House is perfectly comfortable with the CDC’s April 1 decision to terminate the public health authority (known as Title 42) that allowed border agents to quickly expel illegal aliens at the border to protect agents, Americans, and migrants from COVID.

Since March of 2020, the CDC had issued multiple Title 42 orders and extensions to reduce the risk of COVID introduction, transmission, and spread at ports of entry and Border Patrol stations. These orders significantly reduced the number and density of aliens held in these congregate settings. As border agents continue to break monthly records of illegal alien apprehensions since Joe Biden became president, it makes no sense to end this public health authority designed to prevent large volumes of people—whose COVID immunity and vaccination status are unknown—from gathering in close quarters.

>>> Revoking the CDC’s T42 Order Would Create Massive Crush at the Border

A federal judge has ordered the Biden administration to keep Title 42 authority in place for now, but the administration is appealing that order.

The Biden administration is being duplicitous regarding COVID. It continues to approve emergency authority and promote COVID-19 vaccines and is now pushing for young children—even babies—to receive risky and needless COVID vaccines. But it simultaneously seeks to terminate the authority for border agents to help reduce the public health risks of COVID. Instead, it keeps our border open to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, permits them to refuse vaccination, and then allows them to travel elsewhere in the country, without consequence.

Under President Biden, our own federal agencies don’t agree if we are in a health emergency or not. This is just another example of his dangerously incompetent leadership.

This piece originally appeared in 19fortyfive