Review of Booster Shots for Moderna, J&J Vaccines Just Weeks Away: Fauci

MONDAY, Sept. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) – If Americans who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines are dismayed by the lack of information on booster shots for them, their wait should end soon.

Data on booster shots for those vaccines are only a few weeks away from a review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Anthony Fauci, M.D., director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday during interviews on various television news programs.

"The actual data that we'll get [on] that third shot for the Moderna and second shot for the J&J is literally a couple to a few weeks away," Fauci said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." "We're working on that right now to get the data to the FDA, so they can examine it and make a determination about the boosters for those people."

On Friday, an FDA advisory panel voted unanimously to recommend a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine six months after the second dose for certain vulnerable Americans. Fauci acknowledged that the approximately 81 million Americans who received the Moderna or J&J vaccines may feel left out. "We are definitely paying strong attention to both the J&J people and those who received a Moderna," he said. "They're not being left behind by any means."

The process of rolling out booster shots is evolving, noted Fauci, who is 80 and plans to get a booster shot when it is approved. "The one thing I think people need to realize is that data are coming in, literally, on a daily and weekly basis," Fauci explained. "They're going to continue to look at this, literally in real time. More data will be coming in on both safety for younger individuals, efficacy… So, the story is not over yet. I think people need to understand that. This is not the end of the story."

"Meet the Press" Interview