Article calls for vaccine policy that promotes health for all
ACP's CEO and President discuss lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of basing vaccination recommendations on scientific evidence and consideration of individual patients' situations.
In an Ideas and Opinions piece published June 3 in Annals of Internal Medicine, Darilyn V. Moyer, MD, MACP, ACP's CEO and Executive Vice President, and Jason M. Goldman, MD, MACP, ACP's President, detail lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of making vaccination recommendations based on scientific evidence and consideration of individual patients' situations.
FDA officials have recently stated that future use of COVID-19 boosters will be limited to older and high-risk patients, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that the CDC will no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for young children and pregnant women. Drs. Moyer and Goldman note that a risk-based strategy for use of COVID-19 boosters has merit but state that estimation of risk must weigh other factors beyond a person's age and health conditions, such as social circumstances, living situation, work responsibilities, and family dynamics.
“Providing the opportunity for someone to be vaccinated based on the best available scientific evidence and their personal situations supports the concepts of liberty and choice. Political directives should not prevent individuals from seeking safe and effective care that they desire and deserve,” Drs. Moyer and Goldman wrote. “People in the US should have agency and autonomy to decide how they should best receive care in the framework of mutual respect and reciprocity of rights so that their actions do not negatively impact another's.”