Yale epidemiologist says FDA approval of COVID vax for small children is 'preordained outcome'

Yale Epidemiology Professor Harvey Risch says there is "no benefit and only potential risk" for healthy infants and children to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but the government has taken on a "very paternalistic attitude" toward the public during the pandemic. 

The risks from COVID are "close to zero for healthy children," Risch told "Just the News, Not Noise," on Thursday. 

One day prior, a US Food and Drug Administration committee voted to recommend the Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccines for infants as young as 6 months old.

"For children who are obese or have diabetes, or other chronic conditions, that's a discussion with a care provider who understands how to balance risks versus benefits," he stressed. "But for healthy children, there is no benefit and only potential risk."

Risch said he "just cannot understand" why the FDA voted to approve the Pfizer vaccine under an emergency use authorization for children. 

He noted that after a trial with 1,200 children (with half receiving three doses of the Pfizer COVID vaccine and half receiving a placebo) data shows three total events. Two events were in the placebo group and one was in the vaccinated group, which led the company to claim a 75% benefit for children who receive three doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

"One cannot draw conclusions from three events in in a randomized trial. It's just no information to go on. Nevertheless, the committee voted unanimously to approve the vaccine for the 6 months to 2 years age group with no information," he told editor-in-chief John Solomon and co-host Amanda Head. 

"This statistical information is useless, and we already knew that it was useless from the second dose. So for the committee to do that, it is... completely irrational, misguided [and] misunderstanding science, and those people shouldn't be on the committee if they can't make rational decisions," Risch explained.

He said he is unsure whether the FDA approval of the vaccine for small children was a "political outcome," but said, "I think it's a preordained outcome."

Washington has "taken a very paternalistic attitude towards the general population" when it comes to public health, he observed.

The government has "misrepresented both scientific information, and presented what I call a 'plethora of plausibility,' and claim that it was science. Plausibility is not science," Risch said, citing government instructions to wear a face mask "based on a plausibility that the mask sitting there in front of them is doing something."

He stressed, "[t]his is all misinformation being paraded as science when it's really plausibility, and they're not the same thing."