The topic of vaccines, particularly in relation to children has been a very controversial one. The British Medical Journal has now published a blog post on their website which argues that: “Covid vaccines for children should not get emergency use authorization”.
This blog post was published on behalf of Wesley Pegden, Vinay Prasad, and Stefan Baral. This blog post has argued that whilst the “rapid development of highly effective covid-19 vaccines is a triumph of science” emergency use authorisation should not be granted for children due to the “likelihood of severe outcomes or death associated with covid-19 infection is very low for children, undermining the appropriateness of an emergency use authorization for child covid-19 vaccine”.
The BMJ blog goes on to state that in order a vaccine to be given emergency use authorisation it should be required that “an intervention address a serious or life-threatening condition, and for known and potential benefits of the intervention to be balanced against the known and potential harms.”. The blog post argues that at the current time, this is not the case.
Vaccine testing has already happened in the UK on children and this BMJ blog post states that: “Even in the likely scenario that no significant adverse events materialize, we may still pay a price for the pursuit of emergency use authorizations for covid-19 vaccines in children. The controversy surrounding mass child vaccination under emergency use authorizations could feed vaccine hesitancy”.
This looks set to be a story that will build over the coming weeks and months and UNN’s Oliver Down will bring you more details and developments as we get them.
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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