Doctor’s message to parents: Think twice before getting your child vaccinated for COVID-19
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – One of the nation’s most influential doctors is urging parents to think twice before getting their children vaccinated. His warning comes after some kids have developed heart complications following their second dose. A few have even died.
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Johns Hopkins University professor and surgeon, Dr. Marty Makary, is asking his colleagues at the Food and Drug Administration to hold off on making universal recommendations for healthy kids under 18 years old to get the coronavirus vaccine.
‘”Given the data, there is not enough compelling evidence for it right now,” Makary told News 8. “There was also really bad data coming out of the CDC. We needed better risk stratification. And even today it turns out the risk in healthy kids versus a kid with comorbidity is diametrically different. It changes that decision for parents whether or not they should have it done for their kids.”
Risk stratification is a technique used to categorize patients based on health status, among other factors. Comorbidities refer to when a patient has more than one illness or disease at the same time.
Makary, also a New York Times bestselling author, says the vaccine dose is just too high for children’s growing bodies and recommends parents hold off on getting their children vaccinated — at least for now.
“We can’t be mandating the vaccine. There are still complications that haven’t been characterized by the second dose,” he adds.
The FDA has added a warning label to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines about the risk of heart inflammation.