WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dr. Ben Carson, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary during the Trump Administration, reacted negatively to the news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday authorized the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, saying that it “makes no sense whatsoever.”
The FDA’s approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would make the jab available to 28 million kids in the United States; however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must sign off before the shots can begin swift distribution, which it is expected to do as early as this week.
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who was considered a pioneer in the field, was interviewed by Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” where he said that he would “absolutely not” distribute the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to children, stating that the potential long-term effects for kids are not yet known.
“This is really a giant experiment,” Carson said. “Do we want to put our children at risk when we know that the risk of the disease to them is relatively small, but we don’t know what the future [vaccine] risks are? Why would we do a thing like that?”
Carson elaborated on his stance, noting that the current mortality rate for children from COVID-19 is relatively low, and that he felt that the benefit-to-risk ratio didn’t justify the FDA’s approval of the jab for kids ages 5 to 11 at this time.
“The fact of the matter is, the mortality rate for children from COVID-19 is 0.025, which is very similar to the rate for seasonal flu. And we haven’t been for years and years going through all these things for seasonal flu,” he said. “Plus, we don’t know what the long-term impact of these vaccines is. So this is really sort of a giant experiment. Do we want to put our children at risk, when we know that the risk of the disease to them is relatively small, but we don’t know what the future risks are? Why would we do a thing like that? It makes no sense whatsoever.”
Last Tuesday, Dr. Eric Rubin – a voting member of an FDA advisory committee – admitted right before a vote was held to approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution for kids that the ultimate degree of safety for that age group wouldn’t be known until it is administered on a widespread basis.
“We’re never gonna learn about how safe the vaccine is until we start giving it,” he said. “That’s just the way it goes.”
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