AFAIK the advisory panel can be overruled. FDA itself can still approve it.
Edit: Advisory panel approved boosters for some cases as well (ZeroHedge below, but saw it in various places last night):
Update (1620ET): Minutes after the FDA advisory panel rejected the Biden Administration's plan to dole out booster shots to patients as young as 16, the same panel returned and voted unanimously to temporarily approve Pfizer Booster jabs for patients who are either a.) 65 or older, b.) immunocompromised or c.) both.
Not even overruled. Advisory committee votes are not binding on any component of a drug application.
FDA can and has approved drugs that were unanimously voted against. These meetings used to have some value, but today FDA mostly convenes them as a way of building consensus and an appearance of having done their due diligence. What the committee says or how they vote won't change the outcome of a drug approval, which FDA frequently decides on prior to the meeting.
I'd argue for the elderly there is a clear case. Elderly already can die of a lot of things and we know that beervirus drop them.
Our main concern was with how it'll fuck us 20-40 year olds up with those "rare" side effects that well, are way worse than what the elderly have been dealing with.
I'm kinda ok with the exceptions, it's when they try to get the rest of us to take it and we have the rest of our lives to live. What's going to happen down the line? We don't know. If people start growing a third penis we'll know who we can blame.
AFAIK the advisory panel can be overruled. FDA itself can still approve it.
Edit: Advisory panel approved boosters for some cases as well (ZeroHedge below, but saw it in various places last night):
Not even overruled. Advisory committee votes are not binding on any component of a drug application.
FDA can and has approved drugs that were unanimously voted against. These meetings used to have some value, but today FDA mostly convenes them as a way of building consensus and an appearance of having done their due diligence. What the committee says or how they vote won't change the outcome of a drug approval, which FDA frequently decides on prior to the meeting.
I'd argue for the elderly there is a clear case. Elderly already can die of a lot of things and we know that beervirus drop them.
Our main concern was with how it'll fuck us 20-40 year olds up with those "rare" side effects that well, are way worse than what the elderly have been dealing with.
I'm kinda ok with the exceptions, it's when they try to get the rest of us to take it and we have the rest of our lives to live. What's going to happen down the line? We don't know. If people start growing a third penis we'll know who we can blame.
That's the foot-in-the-door-mentality of how everyone loses all their freedom.