The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory committee today endorsed Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, despite strong objections raised during the meeting by multiple scientists and physicians.

The vote passed with 17 supporting it and one abstention.

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Before the shots can be rolled out, the FDA will have to formally authorize the vaccine, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must also weigh in with its own recommendations — but the Biden administration’s announcement last week that it has already ordered 68 million doses of the pediatric vaccine suggests Pfizer’s request will sail through.

During today’s meeting, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Committee (VRBPAC) heard evidence from Pfizer and regulators, and listened to concerns from numerous experts.

According to the FDA website, as of Oct. 25, the agency had received 139,470 comments from the public prior to today’s meeting — a number federal officials described as strikingly high.

As he opened the meeting, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), said, “I want to acknowledge the fact that there are strong feelings that have clearly been expressed by members of the public both for and against” authorization.

Marks stressed the only question before the experts was whether shots should be allowed, not whether to mandate them, the New York Times reported.

The dose for younger children would be one-third the strength given to people 12 and older, with two shots given three weeks apart.

Based on CDC data presented during the meeting, among children 5 to <12 years of age, there have been approximately 1.8 million confirmed and reported COVID cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and only 143 COVID-related deaths in the U.S. through Oct. 14. . .

Long-term safety of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine “to evaluate long-term sequelae of post-vaccination myocarditis/pericarditis” in participants 5 to <12 years of age will not be studied until after the vaccine is authorized for children,” Pfizer’s application noted.

Experts raised concerns over the lack of safety and efficacy data presented by Pfizer for use of its COVID vaccine in younger children, and they pointed to increasing safety signals based on reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

They also questioned the need to vaccinate children — whose risk of dying from COVID is “almost nil” — at all.

According to Dr. Meryl Nass, member of the Children’s Health Defense Scientific Advisory Panel, Pfizer once again did not use all of the children who participated in the trial in their safety study. . .

Steve Kirsch, founder of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, asked the panel how they could do a risk-benefit analysis with Pfizer’s COVID vaccine if they did not know the CDC’s VAERS under-reporting factor (URF).

Kirsch asked:

“How can you do a risk-benefit of analysis of COVID vaccines if you don’t know the URF? This is extremely, extremely important. You have been assuming it has been one. It is not one. Using a URF of 41, which is calculated using CDC methodology, we find over 300,000 excess deaths in VAERS. If the vaccine didn’t kill these people, what did?” . . .

Dr. Jessica Rose, viral immunologist and biologist, told the panel EUA of biological agents requires the existence of an emergency and the nonexistence of alternate treatment.

“There is no emergency and COVID-19 is exceedingly treatable,” Rose said.

In a peer-reviewed study co-authored by Rose, myocarditis rates were significantly higher in people 13 to 23 years old within eight weeks of the COVID vaccine rollout.

In 12- to15-year-olds, Rose said, reported cases of myocarditis were 19 times higher than background rates.

“In an act of censorship, this paper has been temporarily removed and it has now been killed without criticism of the work,” Rose said, noting the timing of the removal was strange. . . .

“Pfizer’s trial is woefully underpowered to detect specific safety concerns, such as myocarditis, just like the adolescent study was, and if they weren’t able to detect an unexpected safety concern there, they wouldn’t be able to here,” Guetzkow said. . . .

Guetzkow asked the panel to look at the data on COVID vaccines compared to flu vaccines. Pointing to the data on reproductive organs, Guetzkow asked, “why would we expect children to take these risks to protect adults?” . . .

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) said yesterday it would take legal action against the FDA if it granted EUA for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children 5- to 11- years old.

In a letter signed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., CHD chairman and chief legal counsel, and Nass, Kennedy and Nass wrote:

“CHD will seek to hold you accountable for recklessly endangering this population with a product that has little efficacy but which may put them, without warning, at risk of many adverse health consequences, including heart damage, stroke, and other thrombotic events and reproductive harms.”

What are your prayers for children today? Please share.

(Excerpt from The Defender, published by Children’s Health Defense.)