Covid-19 vaccine policy should be made by public health experts, not company executives

In a March 13 interview, Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s CEO, said his company intended to apply to the FDA for authorization of a fourth mRNA vaccine dose and implied that this was something all adults needed. Two days later, it did just that — but only for adults over 65. That same day, Stephen Hoge, Moderna’s president, took a different perspective: that a fourth dose of his company’s mRNA vaccine wasn’t required for all adults but could benefit older and immunocompromised Americans. Two days later, Moderna announced it was requesting FDA authorization of a fourth vaccine dose for everyone aged 18 or over. So over a mere four-day period, the two mRNA vaccine companies made internally inconsistent and seemingly arbitrary statements, and then took different actions. Is competition between the two companies for market share now a factor in their decisions? Are they seeing the science differently? And when company executives are, in effect, saying “our vaccines are no longer doing very well, so you need more of them,” isn’t there a risk of playing into the anti-vaccine narrative that vaccines don’t work?