From the Food And Drug Administration:
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and will now be marketed as Comirnaty (koe-mir’-na-tee), for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older. The vaccine also continues to be available under emergency use authorization (EUA), including for individuals 12 through 15 years of age and for the administration of a third dose in certain immunocompromised individuals.
“The FDA’s approval of this vaccine is a milestone as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorization, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D. “While millions of people have already safely received COVID-19 vaccines, we recognize that for some, the FDA approval of a vaccine may now instill additional confidence to get vaccinated. Today’s milestone puts us one step closer to altering the course of this pandemic in the U.S.” [Bolding in original.]
Some extras from the FDA:
Comirnaty contains messenger RNA (mRNA), a kind of genetic material. The mRNA is used by the body to make a mimic of one of the proteins in the virus that causes COVID-19. The result of a person receiving this vaccine is that their immune system will ultimately react defensively to the virus that causes COVID-19. The mRNA in Comirnaty is only present in the body for a short time and is not incorporated into - nor does it alter - an individual’s genetic material. Comirnaty has the same formulation as the EUA vaccine and is administered as a series of two doses, three weeks apart.
“Our scientific and medical experts conducted an incredibly thorough and thoughtful evaluation of this vaccine. We evaluated scientific data and information included in hundreds of thousands of pages, conducted our own analyses of Comirnaty’s safety and effectiveness, and performed a detailed assessment of the manufacturing processes, including inspections of the manufacturing facilities,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “We have not lost sight that the COVID-19 public health crisis continues in the U.S. and that the public is counting on safe and effective vaccines. The public and medical community can be confident that although we approved this vaccine expeditiously, it was fully in keeping with our existing high standards for vaccines in the U.S." [As above, bolding in original.]
And:
To support the FDA’s approval decision today, the FDA reviewed updated data from the clinical trial which supported the EUA and included a longer duration of follow-up in a larger clinical trial population.
Specifically, in the FDA’s review for approval, the agency analyzed effectiveness data from approximately 20,000 vaccine and 20,000 placebo recipients ages 16 and older who did not have evidence of the COVID-19 virus infection within a week of receiving the second dose. The safety of Comirnaty was evaluated in approximately 22,000 people who received the vaccine and 22,000 people who received a placebo 16 years of age and older.
Based on results from the clinical trial, the vaccine was 91% effective in preventing COVID-19 disease.
More than half of the clinical trial participants were followed for safety outcomes for at least four months after the second dose. Overall, approximately 12,000 recipients have been followed for at least 6 months.
And some experts' statements have already arrived.
For example this is from the Johns Hopkins Medical School:
The three COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. are safe and effective in helping prevent serious disease or death due to the coronavirus. These vaccines were granted an emergency use authorization, or EUA, by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine received full approval by the FDA on Aug. 23, 2021.
Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., senior director of infection prevention, and Gabor Kelen, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, explain what that means.
Specifically, What does full FDA approval of a COVID-19 vaccine mean?
Full FDA approval takes place when enough data demonstrate that the vaccines are safe and effective for most people who receive them, and when the FDA has had an opportunity to review and approve the whole vaccine manufacturing process and facilities. After many months of studies and more than 165 million people having received a COVID-19 vaccine, the FDA has a lot of information on how safe and effective the COVID-19 vaccines are in protecting people, how well they work to prevent severe coronavirus disease, and how the vaccines are safely and consistently manufactured.
Then there's the AMA, AHA, ANA statement:
Today’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—the result of many months of work, robust data evaluation, and a thorough, comprehensive review process that has already protected more than one hundred million Americans from severe COVID-19 complications—is a major step forward in the worldwide effort to end this pandemic. The vaccines to prevent COVID-19 are effective; we have known that for months as health care professionals were among the first to get vaccinated and have advocated for our patients to get vaccinated to save lives. But today’s news marks a critical moment for people who were concerned about getting vaccinated due to the vaccines being authorized for emergency use. With millions of data points on the vaccine’s safety and efficacy over nearly nine months of vaccinations, every ‘i’ is dotted and every ‘t’ is crossed. This vaccine is safe, it prevents severe COVID-19, hospitalization, and deaths, and it will save your life.
Of course, now the anti-vaxxers have to move the goal posts:
According to an article published Aug. 20 in the BMJ, transparency advocates have criticized the FDA decision not to hold a formal advisory committee meeting to discuss Pfizer’s application for full approval — an important mechanism used to scrutinize data.
Last year the FDA said it was “committed to use an advisory committee composed of independent experts to ensure deliberations about authorisation or licensure are transparent for the public.”
But in a statement to The BMJ, the FDA said it did not believe a meeting was necessary ahead of the expected full FDA approval.
An FDA spokesperson said the agency held numerous meetings of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) related to COVID vaccines in 2020, and did not believe a meeting was needed related to this biologics license application for Pfizer.
And:
[Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who serves as a consumer representative on the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee] said it’s concerning that full approval is based on only six months’ worth of data — despite clinical trials designed for two years — and there’s no control group after Pfizer offered the product to placebo participants before the trials were completed.
So we have the FDA, American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the American Nurses Association, Johns Hopkins (by definition, medical experts) on one side saying there's enough evidence and the Children's Health Defense folks (definitely not medical experts) saying there isn't enough evidence yet.
Which would you go with?
Expect more goal-post moving like this in the future.