The Washington Post: Scott Ratzan Quoted “Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine wins full FDA approval, potentially persuading the hesitant to get a shot”

In a Washington Post article by Ben Guarino, Laurie McGinley and Tyler Pager released on August 23 entitled “Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine wins full FDA approval, potentially persuading the hesitant to get a shot,” BP2C Executive Director Dr. Scott Ratzan provided his expertise on the subject. Ratzan also shared data results from City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, at which he is a Distinguished Lecturer. Ratzan’s data indicated 3 to 5 percent of unvaccinated Americans said they would get immunized based on this change in FDA approval status. If that group does, the total U.S. vaccinated population would increase by a few million. Read the full article below from The Washington Post.
BP2C Steering Team Partner from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine anthropologist Heidi J. Larson, who directs the Vaccine Confidence Project, is also quoted.

Federal regulators on Monday granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine — a milestone that could help increase inoculation rates and spark a wave of vaccine mandates by employers and universities amid a surge of new cases and hospitalizations fueled by the ferocious delta variant.

The Food and Drug Administration action marks the first licensing of a vaccine for the coronavirus, which has swept the United States in repeated and punishing waves since early 2020, exhausting nursing staffs, filling intensive care units and raising fears among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

The vaccine is approved for two doses, three weeks apart, in people 16 and older. It remains available under emergency use authorization for adolescents ages 12 to 15.

“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,” FDA acting commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement.

President Biden touted the FDA’s full approval of the vaccine Monday and implored unvaccinated Americans to get the shot.