FDA vaccine adviser says healthy young people SHOULDN'T get another COVID booster - Daily Mail

A top vaccine expert and pediatric doctor is cautioning parents of healthy young people to hold off getting the new COVID booster shot, saying it can carry risks and its efficacy hasn't yet been proven. .

Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccine Advisory Committee, said he's not fully sold on the benefits of a third shot outweighing the harm.

But writing in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Offitt said preliminary data suggested the new bivalent vaccines were actually worse at warding off COVID infections than the first generation of shots. .

He highlighted data comparing Moderna's original COVID vaccine and its new bivalent update.

FDA advisor and vaccine maker Paul Offit: “A healthy young person is unlikely to benefit from a booster dose… If there’s not clear evidence of benefit, then it’s not fair to ask people to take a risk.” pic.twitter.com/SgBp5WZbMS.

Paul Offit, right, cautions that there are still risks for healthy young people that should be considered before getting the COVID booster shot.

'A healthy young person is unlikely to benefit from the extra dose,' he said.

Myocarditis can even be fatal, with young people far less likely to suffer a severe COVID infection than older people.  .

'When you are asking people to get a vaccine, I think there has to be clear evidence of benefit,' he said, adding that it's unrealistic to have clinical trials of the latest dose. 'You'd like to have, at least, human data,' he said.

'If there's not clear evidence of benefit, then it's not fair, I think, to ask people to take a risk no matter how small,' Offit said.

He said the studies regarding the bivalent vaccine so far were 'underwhelming.' 

We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline