Last edited Sun Aug 22, 2021, 02:37 PM - Edit history (1)
New drugs are never tested on children. The medicine my daughter started taking in1995, as a child, is still not approved for use by children. Women are often excluded, as well because of the risk of pregnancy. Once a drug has received full FDA approval for adult use, based on the group it tested, even if the group excluded women, and was short on racial minorities, doctors start using it "off-label" for children, and, in essence, It is field tested, informally, on women, children, and racial minorities. We learn of the problems slowly, as data emerges in those populations.
The vaccine needs to be specifically tested for children, because we plan to give it to all children, making the risk significantly higher.
And, as a matter of fact, we don't know that it is safe for adults. We know only that it is safe short term for adults. We have no way of knowing that it is safe long term, and we don't have time to wait to find out. Routine screening x-rays (which my mother had), thalidomide, DES, are all now known to be dangerous - But based on short term tests believed to be perfectly safe.
They are doing precisely what they need to do, and have done a remarkably good job of testing these vaccines in a much more diverse population than usual. But kids are not, medically, just miniature adults - and their long term is heck of a lot longer than my long term.
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