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Editor's Note: Below is a brief excerpt from a complimentary Health Policy Unplugged note written by our Health Policy analyst Emily Evans. Click HERE to learn more about Emily's research process and the analysis subscribers receive. |
According to the original contract (technically not a "contract" but we can clarify that later) between the Department of Defense and Pfizer dated July 21, 2020, the choice of mRNA as a vaccine candidate was ideal because it eliminated anti-vector immunity and permitted boosters.
In other words, if successful the COVID-19 vaccine would become the razor-razorblade model for PFE.
Another original idea was that the mRNA platform could be deployed for vaccinating against other diseases. These things, in additional to avoiding the heavy hand and oversight of the federal government, argued for rejecting federal assistance in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. PFE and BNTX would retain unarguable control of their IP to use as they wish.
Two things now threaten that model. First, Americans were not informed, perhaps as they should have been, that the plan all along meant some reliance on boosters.
The epically misguided belief in zero-COVID forced the public health message into "boost to stop the spread." Breakthrough infections in the summer of 2021 led to some very unpleasant blame gaming, which led to mandates, which led to public distrust and rejection of all things vaccine.
Traditional vaccines on the child schedule are below normal levels in the U.S. and worldwide. The uptake in the recently approved COVID-19 vaccinations for children 6mo to 5 years has been about 2% of the eligible populations.
That could change when preschools open in the fall, but right now not a hearty endorsement by parents of infants and toddlers, and. I suspect, their pediatricians. It is not just the young.
A more worrisome trend is the slow adoption of boosters in the 65+ cohort, the very people whose risk-reward analysis is the best. In absolute terms, uptake is high relative to other vaccines like the annual flu shot. The trend, however is down and to the right.
We should not discount PFE's robust marketing engine. Health and Human Services is running pretty slick ads, Elmo on Sesame Street is involved. Scott Gottlieb assures the street each day on Squawk Box that the next pandemic is just around the corner.
America, on the other hand, is tuning it out, moving on and growing increasingly skeptical that the American pharmaceutical industry has their interests in mind.
Let me know what you think.
