FDA commissioner on new COVID variant and COVID vaccine recommendations

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Dr. Marty Makary, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the new COVID variant, NB.1.8.1.

"This appears to be a subvariant of JN.1, which has been the dominant strain so it's believed that there is cross-immunity protection. The COVID virus is going to continue to mutate, and it's behaving like a common cold virus. It's now going to become the fifth coronavirus that's seasonal, that causes about 25% of the cases of the common cold," Dr. Makary explained.

When asked if he's thinking of it as a flu-type variant, Makary said, "The flu mutates about 34 times more frequently than COVID. The COVID variant mutation rate appears to be a little more stable, but the international bodies that have provided some guidance on which strain to target, have suggested that either JN.1 or any of these subvariants would be reasonable strains to target."

During the interview, Brennan and Makary talked about new COVID vaccine recommendations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now says that kids with no underlying health conditions "may receive" COVID-19 vaccines, dropping a broad recommendation for all children to get vaccinated against the virus.

Updates to the CDC's childhood immunization schedule were published late Thursday, following an announcement earlier this week by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who said the agency would stop recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.

This prompted Brennan to ask Makary to clarify what the policy is, to which Makary said:

"We believe the recommendation should be with a patient and their doctor. So we're going to get away from these blanket recommendations in healthy, young Americans because we don't want to see kids kicked out of school because a 12-year-old girl is not getting her fifth COVID booster shot. We don't see the data there to support a young, healthy child getting a repeat, infinite, annual COVID vaccine. There's a theory that we should sort of blindly approve the new COVID boosters in young, healthy kids every year in perpetuity, and a young girl born today should get 80 COVID mRNA shots, or other COVID shots in her average lifespan. We're saying that's a theory, and we'd like to check in and get some randomized, controlled data. It's been about four years since the original randomized trials, so we'd like an evidence based approach."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Makary, click here.