Last week the FDA authorized and the CDC now recommends a third mRNA booster for the immunocomprimised. The CDC says:
That's very reasonable but the headline is inaccurate because the CDC then goes on to say:
So if you got one dose of J&J and are immunocompromised then you can't get a second dose. But if you got two doses of an mRNA (which is already more effective than one dose of J&J) and are immunocompromised then the CDC recommends a third dose. None of this makes any sense. The weasel words there 'isn't enough data to determine' indicate a typical failure to think in Bayesian terms and use all the information available and a typical failure to think in terms of patient welfare and expected cost and benefits.
Notice also the illiberal default. Instead of saying 'we don't have data on the J&J vaccine and the immunocompromised so we are not at this time recommending or not recommending boosters but leaving this decision in the hands of patients and their physicians' they say 'we don't have data and so we are forbidding patients and their physicians from making a decision using their own judgment.'
Hat tip: Pharmacist CB.
