(ATLANTA) — CDC Director Rochelle Walensky gave the final signoff on Thursday evening to recommend both Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine boosters for certain populations.
The CDC’s independent panel voted unanimously to support that decision earlier Thursday.
The panel recommended a third dose for Moderna vaccine recipients at least six months after a person’s initial course for those 65 and older, and those as young as 18 who are at higher risk due to their underlying health conditions, or where they work or live.
This aligns with what was recommended for a third booster dose for recipients of the Pfizer vaccine.
A second dose for those that received a one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine was recommended for anyone 18 years and older, at least two months after their first dose.
The panel also cleared the way for allowing mixing and matching of booster doses, meaning they will allow for people to get a different brand as a booster than was used for a primary vaccination.
Echoing the FDA however, CDC advisors today did not say any booster combination was preferred over another.
MORE: As White House announces vaccine plan for kids ages 5-11, states prepare for complex rollout
CDC’s advisory vote follows — and falls in line with — FDA’s move Wednesday to authorize those boosters, and aligns with what FDA and CDC authorized for the Pfizer vaccine booster shots last month.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky must now give the final signoff to the panel’s recommendation, which is typically expected within a day.
(NEW YORK) — A salmonella outbreak in 37 states has been linked to fresh whole red, white, and yellow onions sold to restaurants and grocery stores throughout the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least 652 people have reported illness with 129 hospitalizations due to the onions imported from Chihuahua, Mexico, and distributed by ProSource Inc, according to the CDC.
The company said these onions had import dates from July 1 to Aug. 27. It said they can last up to three months in storage and may still be in homes and businesses.
These onions may have stickers or packaging to indicate the brand, ProSource Inc., and the country where they were grown. They were sold in 37 states.
Investigators are working to determine if any other onions or suppliers are linked to this outbreak.
ProSource Inc. said it voluntarily agreed to recall these onions.
“While investigations into various potential sources of salmonella remain ongoing, to date no onions marketed through ProSource have tested positive for Salmonella,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “This voluntary recall is being conducted out of an abundance of caution, in cooperation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), based on reported illnesses which have been associated with the possible consumption of fresh onions that originated in Chihuahua, MX.”
CDC recommendations
Check storage coolers and coolers for these onions. If you can’t tell where they are from, don’t buy them or eat them, throw them away, the agency said.
Wash and sanitize any surfaces or containers that may have touched these onions with hot soapy water.
Do not buy or eat any whole fresh red, white, or yellow onions if they were imported and distributed from the above places.
Throw away any whole red, white, or yellow onions you have at home that do not have a sticker or packaging.
Salmonella symptoms
The CDC urges anyone to call their health care provider if they have any of these severe salmonella symptoms:
-Diarrhea and a fever higher than 102°F
-Diarrhea for more than three days that is not improving
-Bloody diarrhea
-So much vomiting that you cannot keep liquids down
-Signs of dehydration, such as not peeing much, dry mouth and throat, feeling dizzy when standing up
Most people infected with salmonella experience diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. Symptoms typically start six hours to six days after swallowing the bacteria.
Recovery for most people without treatment is four to seven days, but people with weakened immune systems like children under 5 and adults over 65 may experience more severe illnesses that require medical treatment or hospitalization.
For more information about salmonella, see the CDC Salmonella Questions and Answers page here.
(NEW YORK) — First lady Dr. Jill Biden is speaking out about two causes close to her heart: access to community colleges and breast cancer awareness.
In a new interview with Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts, Biden, a professor of writing at Northern Virginia Community College, said she plans to continue to advocate to make community colleges more accessible to more Americans.
Tuition-free community college was included in President Joe Biden’s social-spending package, but it is now reportedly one of the latest big-ticket items to be dropped from the package.
When asked by Roberts what she would say to families who were hopeful about the prospect of free community college access, the first lady replied, “I would say we’re not giving up. We are not giving up. This is round one. This is year one. I’m going to keep going.”
Biden, the country’s sole first lady to hold a job outside the White House, said she is also committed to another cause important to her — making sure breast cancer screenings are accessible to all Americans.
During the coronavirus pandemic, many doctors saw a drop in cancer screenings due to limited non-essential, in-person visits and patients opting to put off routine examinations — including annual cancer screenings — to curb risky face-to-face interactions.
The number of screening and mammograms given to people in the U.S. fell by as much as 80 percent during the pandemic, according to research published in July in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Now, Biden is making it her mission to make sure people do not miss their screenings.
“We were afraid of the pandemic, afraid of the virus, but now I think that we’ve moved on a little bit and people are vaccinated,” Biden said. “We have to make sure that we have to get the message out.”
Urging people to get mammograms, Biden continued, “The next thing you have to do today is call your doc and get in there and get your screenings. If you go get that mammogram and they catch it early, you have a fighting chance.”
Why breast cancer research matters to the first lady
For Biden, who has been advocating for breast cancer research since the early 1990s, her fight for breast cancer prevention and awareness is personal.
“I had four friends who were diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time,” Biden said. “Unfortunately, we lost one of those friends, and I was so upset. I thought, what can I do? There has to be something. I thought, I know education inside and out, and so let’s start to educate people.”
Biden started to spread the message about breast cancer awareness in schools.
“I went into all the schools in Delaware and we taught them about early detection and breast health and the importance of good habits,” said Biden, whose husband served as a Democratic senator from Delaware for several decades. “Not only that, then they went home and sort of spread the word. When your kids say it, you do it, you know?”
Detecting breast cancer early
Biden spoke to Roberts at the Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center in New York City, where doctors have also seen a drop in the number of people getting mammograms.
“We screen about 41,000 patients getting mammograms every year, and with the pandemic here, that dropped to almost 31,000, and that’s disheartening,” Dr. Amanda Rivera, an attending radiation oncology physician at Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center, told “GMA.” “We really just want people to get their cancer detected early so that we have more treatment options.”
For 52-year-old Sandra Cruz, her hesitancy around the pandemic pushed back her annual mammogram. It wasn’t until this past April, after her doctor urged her to get screened, that she learned of her Stage 1 breast cancer diagnosis.
Like Biden, Cruz — who does not need chemotherapy but will be starting radiation soon — is urging other women to get screened early.
“I was one of those women during the pandemic that had the fear of coming in, getting screened,” Cruz said. “I for one didn’t know what COVID was all about except for the fear of catching it, so I was one of those individuals that waited until things calmed down.”
Biden noted she took time within the first month of moving to the White House earlier this year to get a mammogram.
“As soon as we got into office, there I was, off and getting my mammogram,” she said. “There’s nothing more important than your health. Nothing.”
Improving access to screenings
As first lady, Biden said she is also working to make sure the federal government makes it a priority to provide access to mammograms to all women.
“It’s the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that we have access, that all communities have access,” Biden said. “Whether that’s urban, whether that’s rural, so that’s one of the things that we plan to do.”
Medical centers like Montefiore are also working to make sure their efforts to increase screenings reach all people, including those who face barriers when it comes to health care.
“We know that in communities of color, in communities where there’s less access to health care, we have barriers to overcome in terms of getting that population in for cancer screening,” Rivera said. “When you add a pandemic onto that, those disparities only grow further.”
Rivera said one of the ways Montefiore is reaching communities of color is through its clinical trials.
“As we learn through science, through research, we know that certain differences exist,” Rivera said. “Until we get more representation on those clinical trials, we’re not adequately assessing that patient population. So it’s very important to get more clinical trial enrollment from communities of color.”
According to federal guidelines, women ages 40 to 44 should have access to annual breast cancer screening with mammograms, while women ages 45 to 54 should get mammograms every year.
Starting at age 55, women should switch to mammograms every two years or continue annual screenings, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
(ATLANTA) — An independent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on Thursday is set to discuss and vote on booster shots for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, along with the potential for people to mix and match their booster doses.
On Wednesday, the FDA authorized Moderna and J&J boosters for some, and allowed for mix and matching booster doses with a different vaccine.
The next step in the process is for the CDC panel to deliberate and ultimately vote on whether to recommend those boosters, and whether and how to mix and match them.
The panel’s vote is non-binding, and CDC is not required to follow the panel’s recommendations, though they generally do so.
Once the panel votes, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to make her own final signoff shortly after — typically within a day.
Boosting for eligible Moderna and J&J recipients would be able to start once Walensky gives the greenlight — potentially meaning those populations could begin receiving their boosters as soon as the end of this week.
The FDA has made clear there is no preferred booster vaccine for the mixed dosage, but the CDC panel is likely to discuss available data on what booster blend might offer the strongest immunity.
Dr. Peter Marks, a top FDA official, said allowing people to mix boosters makes sense, particularly when people might not remember what brand they initially received.
“Most people don’t know what brand flu vaccine they received. And although they’re somewhat more standardized, perhaps, this is something that is probably a good next step for us to be able to have the flexibility that people can get vaccinated easily,” he told reporters.
Under the new rules, if the CDC signs off, Moderna recipients would qualify for a booster shot of their choice if they are 65 or older — or younger with medical conditions or a high-risk job. The FDA and CDC had already cleared Pfizer recipients to get a third shot, and now they too can choose which brand booster they want. J&J recipients 18 and older would be eligible for a booster of their choice.
(NEW YORK) — The country’s largest nurses’ union praised the federal government on Wednesday after officials said three states tasked with implementing their own safety measures for health care workers would lose that right unless they adhered to agreed-upon guidelines.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had announced Tuesday it was considering stripping Arizona, Utah and South Carolina of their abilities to oversee workplace safety enforcement because they’re not in compliance with an emergency standard order passed over the summer that guarantees certain protections.
OSHA had allowed 22 states to oversee work conditions for health care workers — measures including the wearing of personal protective equipment, or PPE, enforcing social distancing, providing paid sick leave — so long as local workplaces adopted requirements at least as strong as those agreed to at the federal level.
Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, which represents over 175,000 nurses, said in a statement on Wednesday that health care workers from coast to coast have been pushing for better protections as they put themselves at risk working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We urge federal OSHA to act expeditiously to put in place the necessary elements for federal OSHA to resume enforcement in Arizona, Utah, South Carolina and any other states which fail to enforce the [emergency standard] to ensure protections for health care workers,” Burger said in a statement. “We will never emerge from this pandemic if we don’t make sure nurses and health care workers are safe at work.”
The Republican governors of Arizona, Utah and South Carolina defended their states’ action and accused OSHA of overreach.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey contended that the Industrial Commission of Arizona’s OSHA, or ICA, the state’s workplace overseer, intends to comply with the emergency standards but is seeking public input on the mandate. Ducey accused the federal government of not justifying its threat to revoke oversight powers.
“The federal government’s threat to strip the ICA of its OSHA authority is nothing short of a political stunt and desperate power grab,” Ducey said in a statement.
Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox said in a statement that he had concerns over the emergency standard, saying it “would place an unfair burden on the health care industry” and his state didn’t “have regulatory authority to require employers to pay their employees sick leave.”
“We reject the assertion that Utah’s State Plan is less effective than the federal plan,” Cox said.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said his office is preparing for “a vigorous and lengthy legal fight” and that OSHA’s announcement Tuesday was “clearly a preemptive strike by the federal government.”
Burger stressed that all three states needed to prioritize the safety of health care workers and come together to make sure they’re protected as hospitalizations keep increasing.
“Arizona, South Carolina, and Utah had the duty — legally and morally — to come into compliance and protect workers,” Burger said. “They did not, and we could not be more proud that OSHA is standing up to hold them accountable today.”
(WASHINGTON) — The FDA on Wednesday announced it has authorized boosters for millions more Americans, giving a green light for third shots to people who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
The FDA also says it will allow people to mix and match booster doses.
The agency detailed its decision in a news release that said a single booster dose of the Moderna vaccine may be administered at least six months after completion of the primary series to individuals 65 years of age and older, those 18 through 64 years of age at high risk of severe COVID-19 and those 18 through 64 years of age with frequent institutional or occupational exposure to the virus.
It went on to say the use of a single booster dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine may be administered at least two months after completion of the single-dose primary regimen to individuals 18 years of age and older.
Nothing has changed yet for individuals.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee will meet Thursday and cast a non-binding vote on the matter and then CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky will release final recommendations.
This is developing story. Please Check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — One day after making a surprise revelation on live television that he has multiple sclerosis , CNN anchor John King said he hopes his openness inspires people to take precautions against COVID-19 seriously.
“I’m not supposed to be part of the story, I’m supposed to cover stories,” King said Wednesday on “Good Morning America, adding, “If my personal experience can help anybody or help people understand, again, that the person next to you, you may not know, on the subway, or on the bus, in a coffee shop might need your help and you can do a couple easy things to make them feel safer, if I can help with that, then so be it.”
The “Inside Politics” host opened up about his own MS battle Tuesday during a segment in which COVID-19 vaccine mandates were discussed, following the death of former secretary of state Colin Powell, who died Monday morning due to complications from COVID-19.
Powell, who was fully vaccinated, was being treated for multiple myeloma, which compromises the immune system. He had also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, according to his spokesperson.
“I’m going to share a secret I have never spoken before. I am immunocompromised,” King said on his show. “I have multiple sclerosis. So I am grateful you are all vaccinated. I am grateful my employer says all of these amazing people who work on the floor, who came in here in the last 18 months when we are doing this, are vaccinated now that we have vaccines. I worry about bringing it home to my 10-year-old son who can’t get a vaccine. I don’t like the government telling me what to do. I don’t like my boss telling me what to do. In this case, it’s important.”
King, 58, who is CNN’s chief national correspondent, told “GMA” that he had not planned to reveal his MS diagnosis live on-air, but felt compelled in order to help combat what he called “reckless and dangerous” rhetoric around COVID-19 vaccines and other safety measures.
“We should be willing to do hard things to help other people,” he said. “Rolling up your sleeves and getting a safe vaccine is easy. Putting on a mask in a crowded place is easy. So why can’t we do the easy things?”
“These steps are easy and they could help a friend or a neighbor or a stranger get through the day,” King added.
Currently, just 66.8% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
King said he has taken extra safety precautions himself during the pandemic, for his own health but also to protect his family, including his 10-year-old son, who is currently too young to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Studies have shown vaccinated individuals are significantly less likely to spread coronavirus to family members within a household, National Institutes of Health director Frances Collins wrote in a blog post Tuesday on the safety of the vaccines.
In addition to being fully vaccinated, the CNN anchor said he also received a vaccine booster shot.
“I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t want my employer telling me you have to get a vaccine. I don’t want the government telling me I have to do things, but this is bigger than that,” he said. “Moments in American history when we’re all challenged, when we’re all at risk, we’re supposed to come together and set the politics stuff aside and just love thy neighbor, protect thy neighbor.”
King said he has relapsing-remitting MS, which is the most common disease course, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
He said he takes medication to slow the progression of the disease and considers himself “lucky,” but still faces days where the MS is “very frustrating.”
“Today I’m having a problem with my hands. I have not been able to really have full sensation in my legs since late in the Clinton administration,” he said, noting that his MS diagnosis came several years later. “There are some days this knocks me on my you know what, there are other days it’s just a little nagging.”
“But it has made me stronger. I hope, I certainly hope it has made me a better person,” King continued. “And it’s made me aware, again, that a lot of these symptoms, a lot of the stress people are going through is hidden. You cannot see it, but we should just be aware that it’s out there.”
(NEW YORK) — For Mitchell Kronenberg, answers on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can’t come soon enough.
A 42-year-old dad living outside Charlotte, North Carolina, Kronenberg enrolled in a clinical trial for the single-dose vaccine and got his shot last January. Since then, he’s been patiently waiting for U.S. federal regulators to tell him what to do next to stay safe: Should he get another Johnson & Johnson shot? Switch to Moderna or Pfizer? Is his single-shot vaccination enough to protect him from spreading the virus to his unvaccinated 4-year-old son?
“Why is it taking so long? You have people out on a ledge out here,” he said of the process.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide as early as Wednesday whether the 15 million Americans who got the single-dose J&J shot by Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies should get a second dose. The decision comes after studies suggested effectiveness against moderate and severe symptoms climbed from 70% with one dose to 94% with two doses.
Also anticipated is a decision on possible third booster shots for Moderna recipients and whether Americans can mix vaccine brands when getting a booster.
With a decision expected soon, an advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to meet Thursday to offer the public a final recommendation.
Typically a wonky endeavor ignored by most Americans, the FDA and CDC regulatory process is now being closely followed by millions of Americans. People describe joining private Facebook groups to swap the latest research and repeatedly getting their antibody levels checked, even if experts warn it’s an incomplete measure of a person’s immunity.
Some have even opted to mix booster shots on their own even without the federal government’s blessing.
“Every day, I was researching, Googling, reading everything I could get my hands on,” said Lynne Conway, a 59-year-old development officer for an animal shelter in Ithica, New York.
Conway said she experienced mild heart inflammation following her first dose of Moderna last March. After ruling out other causes, her doctor recommended she get the J&J so she can be fully protected against COVID-19. She got that shot in August, despite there being no official green light from regulators to mix shots in such a way.
“The relief of finally deciding to get the (J&J) vaccine, and have it over with, was monumental,” she said.
J&J recipients are among those who expressed being most on edge emotionally, with the 70% effectiveness after one shot — lower than the two doses of Pfizer or Moderna.
Jadzia Pierce, who lives outside of Washington, D.C., said she was relieved regulators were inching toward a decision. In her early 30s, Pierce isn’t at serious risk of major complications from COVID-19.
But she also would like to visit higher-risk relatives this holiday season and to know she’s not at risk of infecting them.
“Even if the answer is (that it puts) other people around at risk, then I guess I just won’t go home,” she said. “I just feel like safety is the most important thing at this point and that’s really all that matters to me.”
J&J declined to comment for this article, citing pending action by regulators. But last Friday, after a meeting of FDA advisors, a top company official told ABC News the J&J vaccine likely protects people by triggering the protection of a person’s T-cells, which is harder to measure than antibodies.
J&J’s “biggest, most impressive components are T-cells, which contribute to both efficacy and durability of our vaccine,” said Mathai Mammen, global head of R&D at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.
For its part, the FDA says its staff is working around the clock to comb through technical data. The CDC too has to hear from its own advisory panel before making a decision.
Kronenberg, who has to travel for work as a director for a medical device company, said he still worries about spreading the virus to his son. He says he understands wanting to get it right but wishes the various agencies could get in a room together and hash it out immediately, rather convene separate meetings and reviews that can drag on for weeks.
Pierce, also in limbo having received the J&J, said she’s torn on whether to be frustrated with the regulatory bureaucracy.
“I’m trying to be patient. I do realize that this stuff takes time, and I don’t want to be following advice that is too rushed and not complete,” she said.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Getting a COVID-19 vaccine isn’t just about protecting yourself, it goes a long way toward protecting your family, according to a new blog post by the director of the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Francis Collins also noted in his Tuesday post that the data shows adults getting vaccinated helps protect those who can’t get vaccines, especially children.
“This is a chance to love your family — and love your neighbor,” Collins wrote.
Collins reiterated that studies have shown vaccinated individuals are significantly less likely to spread coronavirus to family members within a household. He cited a Swedish study published in JAMA Internal Medicine Journal last week that looked at 1.8 million people from more than 800,000 families “who acquired immunity from either previous COVID-19 infection or full vaccination.”
“The data show,” Collins wrote, “that people without any immunity against COVID-19 were at considerably lower risk of infection and hospitalization when other members of their family had immunity, either from a natural infection or vaccination.”
Specifically, the study found that households with one immune family member had a 45% to 61% lower risk of a COVID-19 infection, and that when a household included two immune family members the risk dropped 75% to 86%. With three or more immune family members, the risk of infection dropped almost 97%.
“These results show quite clearly that vaccines offer protection for individuals who lack immunity, with important implications for finally ending this pandemic,” Collins wrote.
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said Collins’ message is important because there needs to be more emphasis on how getting a vaccination is an altruistic act for the entire community.
“We get a lot of focus on individual risk and side effects, and it takes our eye off the ball for the real reason we can and want the population to get inoculated,” he said.
MORE: COVID-19 vaccine shots for kids under 12 may be available in November: 6 things to know
Brownstein said it’s imperative that every eligible person gets vaccine shots as soon as possible since it may take a while for tens of millions of American children to be fully protected.
“Vaccines create a cocoon that ultimately protects those who aren’t eligible,” he added.
Anyone who needs help scheduling a free vaccine appointment can log onto vaccines.gov.
(NEW YORK) — The death of former Secretary of State Colin Powell due to COVID-19 complications has sparked conversations about breakthrough deaths among vaccinated individuals.
It would be inaccurate, however, to jump to any conclusions about vaccine effectiveness from a single breakthrough death such as Powell’s, who was 84 years old, immunocompromised and being treated for multiple myeloma, a blood-borne cancer that “in and of itself can lead to compromised immunity,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at the South Shore Medical Center in Massachusetts, told ABC News.
In a statement, Dr. Paul Richardson, the director of clinical research at the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said myeloma patients are “not only vulnerable to infection but once infected, they are more prone to serious complications including vascular effects and profound immune dysfunction.”
Dr. Craig Devoe, chief of medical oncology and hematology at Northwell Health in New York, said that myeloma doesn’t just put patients at a higher risk of severe illness but could have also put their immune system at a disadvantage for fighting off COVID-19 even when fully vaccinated “because both the disease and the treatment itself are highly immunosuppressive.”
According to his spokesperson, Powell was fully vaccinated and was being treated for myeloma, which is not curable. He had also recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which can itself be debilitating depending on the stage.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been roughly 7,000 breakthrough deaths among the 187 million vaccinated Americans, with more than 6,000 over the age of 65 in contrast to the more than 700,000 COVID-19 deaths among the unvaccinated.
“Without question, we can expect deaths,” Ellerin said. “It is much more common in those unvaccinated than vaccinated. But we are seeing breakthrough vaccine deaths, especially in the elderly — patients in their 80s and older — or those who are immunocompromised.”
No one who receives a COVID-19 vaccine is 100% protected from death, but the vaccines have shown to be extremely effective at lowering the risk of getting the disease.
The CDC recently updated its website with data illustrating the fact that vaccines are still dramatically reducing the risk of testing positive or dying of COVID-19 amid the latest delta surge. While there has been a slight uptick in COVID-19 cases and deaths since July 2021, the increase is more pronounced among unvaccinated individuals.
In August, unvaccinated people were 6.1 times more at risk of testing positive for COVID-19 and 11.3 times more likely to die from COVID-19 compared to vaccinated individuals, according to federal data pulled from 16 states and jurisdictions.
“[A breakthrough vaccine death] is not an argument for ‘don’t get your vaccine,'” Ellerin said. “That is an argument for ‘get your vaccine because that’s the best way of reducing your likelihood of death.'”
Additionally, when broken down by age, death rates in every age group were higher among the unvaccinated populations. Older Americans (80+) had the highest rate of deaths among fully vaccinated people per capita, though their risk of death was about 5.7 times lower than their unvaccinated counterparts in the same age group.
Among the breakthrough deaths, the U.S. is currently seeing what Ellerin labels “a precarious triangle” of risk factors — old age, underlying diseases that lead to immunocompromisation and treatments for those diseases — which make individuals more susceptible to severe COVID-19 infection.
Vaccinated people who fall into the intersection of these risk areas should also prioritize non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as masking when indoors and optimizing ventilation, experts say.
Dr. Edward Stadtmauer, director of the myeloma program at the University of Pennsylvania, told ABC News that the best way for cancer patients to prevent COVID-19 infection or limit its severity is to get vaccinated.
“If you have abnormal plasma cells to begin with or are getting therapy that might suppress or damage plasma cells, you can see why that this group of patients may have the most difficulty responding to a COVID infection and responding to vaccines,” he said.
Stadtmauer said he is seeing about 70% of patients with myeloma generate COVID-19 neutralizing antibodies after vaccination.
“If there is any group of patients who should be vaccinated and get a booster, it is this group of patients,” he said.
The Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 22 authorized Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine boosters for people 65 years and older and those at risk. Powell himself was due for the booster shot the same week he fell ill with COVID-19, his spokesperson said.
“None of these are perfect strategies, but you have the best chance of survival,” Ellerin said.
The misuse of the news of Powell’s death to spread misinformation about vaccine failure and discourage individuals from getting vaccinated can be harmful to those immunocompromised, according to experts, who say that in order to protect those with underlying diseases, it is imperative that everyone around them gets vaccinated to curb the spread of COVID-19.
“Hopefully his life and the fact that he believed in vaccination can be a catalyst for many others to get it,” Ellerin said.
