Moderna stock toppled Friday after advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended the universal recommendation for Covid vaccines.
Instead, vaccination will be based on "shared clinical decision making." But the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices stopped short of requiring prescriptions for people to receive Covid shots. The committee voted 6-6, with Chair Martin Kulldorff delivering the tiebreaking no vote.
This means doctors, pharmacists and other health care providers will help people make the decision on whether to receive a Covid shot. The shots are approved for people age 65 and older, and for people as young as 6 months of age with an underlying condition that puts them at risk of severe Covid.
Moderna stock slumped nearly 1% to close at 25.24. Pfizer stock also shed a fraction to close at 24.02. Shares of BioNTech, Pfizer's partner, also dipped a small fraction. Novavax stock jumped 2.1% to close at 8.71.
Much of the meeting focused on the messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology behind the Covid vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. Novavax's vaccine uses older, protein-based technology.
New Disclosures For Covid Vaccines
The also committee voted unanimously in support of requiring health care professionals to lay out the potential risks and benefits of vaccination. That includes "the six risks and uncertainties included in the (working group) chair presentation." Those include immune changes, biodistribution, frameshifting and impurities. Frameshifting is a biological mistake in how the ribosome reads mRNA instructions.
Jake Scott, an infectious diseases specialist and professor at the Stanford Department of Medicine, criticized the decision in a post on social platform X.
"This vote forces health care providers to present preliminary research and normal immune responses as established risks, contradicting global regulatory assessments and epidemiological evidence, which is very concerning," he said.
The next key step will be watching how municipalities, organizations and insurance companies handle Covid vaccines.
In a study by health tech company MMIT, 65% of payers said they would continue to cover the cost of Covid shots regardless whether the CDC recommended them. But 25% said they would align with the agency's recommendations and limit them.
Follow Allison Gatlin on X/Twitter at @AGatlin_IBD.
