The COVID-19 vaccine should not be mandated for children since it does not “necessarily benefit” them like the vaccines required for school and child care, according to former White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Scott Atlas.
“That is not the case with this disease. Children do not have a high risk from this disease. Children do not necessarily benefit themselves from the vaccination of this,” he added.
Atlas, a senior fellow for the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, said that kids whose immune system is extremely compromised should consider getting vaccinated, but to require healthy children to receive the COVID-19 vaccines would violate the Declaration of Helsinki, a set of ethical principles developed by the World Medical Association to guide physicians and scientists conducting experiments involving humans.
“In fact, the forced vaccines, particularly for children, violate several of the codes outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki from 1964,” Atlas said. “And I think, when you start having a society that violates some of the most basic codes of ethics, I think we’re in trouble.”
Pfizer said that it had submitted preliminary data of its COVID-19 vaccine trial for children aged 5 to 11 to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Tuesday. This comes only two days after the vaccine manufacturer’s Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla told ABC’s “This Week” that the company will soon request authorization of its vaccine.
Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said that the data on the 2,268 children aged 5 to 11, who were given a 10-microgram dose of a two-dose regime, showed that the vaccine was safe and triggered an antibody response similar to that observed in those aged 16 to 25 from a previous trial, who had received 30-microgram doses. But whether the vaccine was effective in preventing disease in kids is still unknown as the companies did not release this data in their press release last week.
Pfizer’s vaccine is the only one granted emergency use in adolescents aged 12 to 15 and approved for people 16 and older.
Although kids are at extremely low risk from COVID-19 and do not significantly spread the disease, there is still a push to get them inoculated. One of the reasons for the push is that it could help protect society, which is a big concern for Atlas.
“Are we a society, a civilization, where we are using our children, even if they did spread, as shields? We’re going to inject our children with an experimental drug that they don’t have a significant benefit from, to shield ourselves,” Atlas said.
He added: “I will never use my children as shields to somehow protect me. That’s really just a heinous violation of all moral principles in my view.”
Opponents of vaccinating children say that the vaccine uses “experimental technology” and lacks long-term safety data. Pfizer states in its press releases that the vaccine may cause adverse events including heart inflammation and other “serious and unexpected side effects” that have not been reported yet, since “the possible side effects of the vaccine are still being studied in clinical trials.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 544 children aged 0 to 18 had died from confirmed or presumed COVID-19 between Jan. 4, 2020 and Sept. 18, 2021, out of a total of 672,020 deaths from all ages.
Federal health authorities are likely to authorize the vaccine for children soon. The FDA said that it was “prepared to complete its review as quickly as possible, likely in a matter of weeks rather than months” and will “carefully, thoroughly, and independently examine the data to evaluate benefits and risks.”
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the health agency will urgently review the data for children once they’ve been reviewed by the FDA.
“As soon as they get submitted to the FDA, I know the FDA is urgently planning to review these data, it will go from the FDA to the CDC, and we will review it with similar urgency,” Walensky told Good Morning America on Monday.
Pfizer said that it will submit a formal request for emergency use of its vaccine for children to the FDA “in the coming weeks,” including to other regulatory authorities around the world.
Some medical experts are also questioning the need to inoculate children without long-term safety data.
“Why would an EUA [emergency use authorization] for C19 vax for 5-11 yo be given, w/o any efficacy and long-term safety studies? Why is it OK to accept efficacy based on seroconversion, when Ab [antibody] status for naturally immune are not accepted?” Dr. Mahesh Shenai, a neurosurgeon, asked on Twitter.
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, professor of psychiatry at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine replied: “Exactly. And we have not just antibody (or even T-cell) lab data for natural immunity, but also robust clinical evidence of protection against reinfection, hospitalization, and death. Vaccines for 5-11 yo receive approval without this yet NI [natural immunity] is ignored with this data?”
Natural immunity from people who have recovered from COVID-19 continues to not be recognized by the federal government and businesses mandating vaccines and passports in the United States.
Atlas said that Americans should have the choice to decide whether they want to be vaccinated or not.
The CDC says that more than 183 million Americans are fully vaccinated as of Sept. 28.
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