Why Is the Vaccine Landscape So Complicated?

Ten months ago, I posted the first Quick Chart on COVID Vaccines to aid in understanding the increasingly complex vaccine landscape.  Today, I’m revising the chart for the sixth time to include new information contained in fourteen Fact Sheets released by the FDA on Friday.  These Fact Sheets cover eleven vaccine versions from three manufacturers, each with unique cap color, label border color, dilution volume, dose volume, and dose interval, all dependent on the age of the recipient.  The Fact Sheets supersede (see under “Storage and Handling, page 3) package inserts and vial labels which are now obsolete and unreliable.  These emergency vaccine authorizations cover all Americans, literally cradle to grave, from age 6 months until death.  The exploding complexity is based on whim, not science, as Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged last week.

The chart above is compiled from all Fact Sheets for Health Care Providers, which you can find in these indexes for Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen.  I have done diligence to ensure accuracy, but given the extreme complexity, I cannot be liable for errors.  Errors on the chart could be embarrassing to me.  Errors in administration of vaccine could have disastrous consequences for vaccine recipients, so the FDA also published wall charts for Pfizer and Moderna vaccine families for reference.

While tabulating information, I noticed some interesting language.

First, FDA gives a new justification for the persistence of Emergency Use Authorizations for vaccines that have approved versions.  Footnote 16 of the reissued ModernaTX Authorization Letter reads,  “Although SPIKEVAX (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) and Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) are approved to prevent COVID-19 in certain individuals within the scope of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine authorization, there is not sufficient approved vaccine available for distribution to this population in its entirety at the time of reissuance of this EUA.”  Of course, this is a sham.  Moderna will never produce enough SPIKEVAX for distribution to the entire population so long as it can produce vaccines for emergency use which have liability protection.     

Second, Moderna Teal, packaged for age 6 through 11 years, is not currently available (see Fact Sheet bullet at top of page 2).  Instead, 6 through 11-year-old children are to receive Moderna Purple, labeled “BOOSTER DOSES ONLY,” as their primary series vaccine (see Fact Sheet bullet at bottom of page 1).  Presumably, the Moderna Purple and Teal formulations are the same, but “Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine is not authorized to provide booster doses to individuals 6 years through 11 years of age.”  Only Pfizer Orange is authorized for booster doses in children under 12 years old.

Finally, all other mRNA vaccines have a two shot primary series with a third shot for the severely immunocompromised, but not Pfizer Maroon.  All infants and toddlers get a three shot primary series when vaccinated with Pfizer.

Why is this so complicated?  There must be very sophisticated data and detailed scientific analysis to produce these dosing rules for primary series and boosters.  Some really smart people must have worked all that out for us.

No.  These rules are based on conjecture and assumption, not science.  For example, according to Dr. Fauci, there are no studies supporting boosters for kids, yet boosters for kids were authorized by FDA last week.  But don’t take my word for it.  Watch for yourself and decide.

If science is not driving the complicated vaccine landscape, there must be another reason.   My hunch—follow the money.