American Academy of Pediatrics Applauds FDA Approval of COVID-19 Vaccine

Statement from Sally Goza, MD, FAAP, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics

“Today's action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue an Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine marks a significant milestone in our efforts to combat this deadly virus. Physicians, nurses and other health care and medical workers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic since its onset and today’s action signals to them needed assurance that a vaccine is on its way. While this is an important step forward, the work has only just begun.

“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a devastating toll on children’s health, which is why it is absolutely critical that children have access to COVID-19 vaccines that are safe and effective for their use. FDA authorized the Pfizer vaccine for 16- and 17-year-old pediatric patients. Experts have made clear, however, that we need to continue to develop additional pediatric data as we move forward. We look forward to learning more about the data from children ages 12 through 15 who were also included in the Pfizer-BioNTech trials. We need to urgently expand research on vaccines for children and adolescents so that they can be protected and we can get this virus under control.”  

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. For more information, visit www.aap.org.