FDA vaccine advisers recommend updating COVID shots
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Food and Drug Administration advisers on Thursday recommended updating next season's COVID vaccines to target the dominant XFG variant, despite concerns about a shortage of surveillance data on evolving strains.
The big picture: The daylong meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee stood out for its measured tone after more than a year of dramatic changes to federal vaccine policy under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Another federal panel handpicked by Kennedy last year dropped a broad recommendation for COVID shots, emphasizing that vaccination was a personal choice.
Driving the news: The XFG strain, also known as "stratus," makes up more than half of all COVID cases in the U.S. and has mutations that could help it evade existing antibodies, federal officials said during Thursday's meeting.
- 8 of 9 members voted in favor of updating the shots to address the variant, a broad recommendation for COVID shots, emphasizing that vaccination was a personal choice.
- Members noted a drop-off in data to base their decisions on, in contrast to past years.
- "It's an increasing problem," the Centers for Disease Control's Natalie Thornburg told the panel. "We see the challenges and are doing our best to make sure you have the information to make these critical decisions."
Of note: The recommendation covers mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, as well as a Sanofi protein-based shot.
- For 2025-26, the FDA had recommended vaccines targeting a subvariant of the JN.1 COVID strain.
- A World Health Organization advisory group voted earlier this month to recommend the LP.8.1 strain as the COVID target for 2026-27, although it told manufacturers shots targeting XFG could also be used.
What's next: The panel's recommendation is non-binding and has to be accepted by the FDA.
- The CDC would ultimately decide which vaccines would be recommended to Americans.
Kennedy last year fired members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, replacing them with some anti-vaccine activists who've advocated that mRNA shots be pulled from the market entirely.
- The panel's recommendations have been frozen as part of litigation challenging changes to the federal childhood immunization schedule.
