James Krellenstein, founder of PrEP4All, an AIDS advocacy group, said it wasn’t fast enough. He blamed the FDA for not moving faster to increase supply and for delaying an inspection of the vaccine maker’s manufacturing plant in Denmark.
But Dr. Robert Califf, the FDA commissioner, told reporters on Thursday that his agency had acted “much faster than expected”, considering that it had to not only inspect the factory but also ensure that the vaccine was efficient. “The only thing worse than not having a vaccine,” he said, “is having a vaccine that’s widely distributed and isn’t effective.”
At the moment, there are not enough vaccines for everyone. On Wednesday, Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat, wrote a letter to Mr. Becerra and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, complaining that New Jersey had not gotten its fair share. In the letter, obtained by The New York Times, Murphy noted New Jersey’s proximity to New York, which has more monkeypox cases than any other state.
He said his calculations showed that because of this proximity and the number of same-sex households in New Jersey, his state would carry 3% of the national disease burden, but received only 2.06% of the 131,000 doses available. so far. “As a result, we do not believe that New Jersey has received a fair percentage of available vaccines,” Murphy’s letter said.
Federal health officials say their allocation strategy depends on two factors: the number of cases in a state and the number of its at-risk residents. The formula favors areas with at-risk populations — including men who have sex with men, who have HIV, or who are eligible for drugs that can reduce the risk of HIV infection, Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, who helps lead the monkeypox response for the CDC
Coming after more than two years of the coronavirus pandemic, the monkeypox outbreak, which began in May, has been another challenge for beleaguered public health officials across the country. Congress has so far failed to allocate money for the response — despite Senate Democrats proposing $21 billion in Covid spending on Thursday — and the public is tired of hearing about infectious diseases. The Biden administration has estimated that it will need an additional $7 billion to fight monkeypox.
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