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J&J Booster Support

An advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration voted Friday to recommend the agency authorize a booster dose of Johnson & Johnson' SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, the Los Angeles Times reports.

It adds that the panel voted in support of a booster for individuals 18 years old and older who had received the J&J vaccine at least two months earlier. The LA Times notes, though, that if FDA authorizes the booster, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group could then recommend that booster dose be prioritized to older or at-risk individuals.

The LA Times adds that as the J&J vaccine was developed as a "one-and-done" vaccine, it had wide support among officials and was geared toward groups that might face challenges in returning for a second shot. But with a booster, the LA Times says the J&J vaccine "could begin to look more like the two-dose vaccine regimens of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna."

"I think, frankly, this was always a two-dose vaccine," Paul Offit from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said during the panel discussion, according to NPR.

An FDA panel also voted last week in support of a Moderna SARS-CoV-2 booster, and the Pfizer-BioNTech SARS-CoV-2 vaccine has already received authorization for a booster for people 65 years old and older and for younger individuals at increased risk.

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