welcome to another video for those of you who don't know me i'm dr mike hansen board
certified in internal medicine pulmonary disease and critical care medicine and i'm guessing if
you're watching this video it's because you only want the best for your child so should you give
your child the pfizer covid vaccine before drawing a conclusion we first need to answer some very
important questions so in this video i'm going to break down the risks and the benefits of
giving your child the new physical vaccine which now has eua emergency use authorization
for children age five to eleven and it's one third of the dose of the adult version and
by the end of this video i'll give you my final take and answer the question would i give it to
my own child do i have children but before we can understand the risks and benefits of the vaccine
we first have to understand the risks that come with covid in children in the age group 5 to 11.
in the united states children less than 18 years account for about 15 percent of lab confirmed
cases reported to the cdc and that's likely an underestimation given the high proportion of mild
and asymptomatic cases that never get tested children of all ages can get covid but the
incidence does increase with age the most recent cdc data from september of 2021 shows that 38
of children in the 5 to 11 age group have covid antibodies indicating that they've had previous
covid infection when children get sick with covid the symptom breakdown usually involves
pneumonia type symptoms like fever cough and shortness of breath in general covid is milder
in children compared to adults but severe cases do occur covid hospitalizations in children less than
18 peaked in january of 2021 declined when you get to june and then it picked back up again and had
a second really big surge with the delta variant starting in july overall there have been more than
8300 children ages 5 to 11 hospitalized with covid and more than 2300 have gotten the related
misc misc refers to system-wide inflammation in the body it's a condition that is similar
to kawasaki disease in a study that looked at over 1000 children hospitalized with misc
the most common age group was between age six to twelve covid infection in children is associated
with an increased risk of myocarditis but the absolute risk is low less than 0.15 percent
other cardiovascular issues can occur as well such as pericarditis arrhythmias and heart failure
but overall these are still pretty rare now in a multi-center case series of 1700 children
hospitalized with covid one third of which had misc overall 22 percent had neurological symptoms
most of them were only temporary now in that study 43 had severe neurologic involvement and
this included things like stroke guillain-barre syndrome and severe seizures meaning they're
referring to status epilepticus now overall 11 children in that study died in a systematic
review that saw information of about 1500 children 2 percent had severe pneumonia and 0.7
required a ventilator with six of those children dying we do know that children with underlying
conditions who get covid have a higher rate of hospitalization and icu admission
and the most common underlying medical conditions associated with higher risk of hospitalization are
obesity chronic pulmonary disease such as asthma and those who were premature babies in another
study that involved several countries the covid death rate was 0.17 per 100 000 children in the
united states according to the cdc 745 children under the age of 18 years have died of a covid but
in the 5 to 11 group specifically it's 172 deaths so overall the chances that a child will have
severe covid require hospitalization or develop a long-term complication like misc overall it's very
low but it's still a risk and it is a risk that is higher for many other diseases that we vaccinate
children for for example we give children the influenza vaccine even though the risk of a child
having a bad outcome from influenza is relatively small but not insignificant so with covid based
on the numbers the vaccine has the potential to save more than 700 kids lives per year and that's
not to mention all the other benefits that come with the vaccine so that's including preventing
and allowing kids to go to school without having to wear masks and letting kids just be kids
to improve their social and mental wellbeing and also vaccinating 28 million kids age 5 to 11
will get us one step closer to herd immunity why because with new variants for example with delta
the number of children being infected is increasing if you have a higher percentage of the
population that is unvaccinated including children the more you end up perpetuating this cycle of
infection and this leads to new potentially more dangerous variants emerging and the reality is
practically speaking it's going to be impossible to get hurt immunity without getting children
vaccinated but of course we first have to know if the vaccine is safe in this age group age 5 to 11.
one thing to know right off the bat is that this dose of the vaccine is one-third the dose
that was used in pfizer's other studies including the one used in adults in the very beginning
but also the one used for adolescents pfizer's trial in this age group of 5 to 11
originally involved 2 268 children two-thirds of the participants received two doses of the vaccine
three weeks apart the other third received a placebo that contained saline
according to pfizer's data for this group the vaccine was 90.7 percent effective in preventing
symptomatic covid and the ones who got the vaccine experienced a robust mounting of antibodies
similar to the levels seen in vaccinated 16 to 25 year olds in july federal regulators
asked pfizer and moderna for that matter to expand their trial sizes for this age group
as a precautionary step to better detect any rare side effects from the vaccine the more
numbers you have the more reliable the results so pfizer increases study to about 4 500 children
the additional children in the study were studied for a shorter amount of time now despite that
pfizer says the vaccine is safe and well tolerated in all of the children with zero cases of severe
illness in zero cases of myocarditis the fda then took a look at the data and their conclusion was
that the benefits of preventing severe cases of covid outweigh the risks of possible side effects
and what about that myocarditis meaning inflammation of the heart muscle it's a medical
condition that existed long before a covid and it can cause chest pain and shortness of breath
in any given week there are two cases of myocarditis for every million people so incredibly
rare the risk for myocarditis does jump to 50 cases per million vaccine doses given in a certain
age group of boys and that's 12 to 24 years of age and according to the cdc even in that age
group 12 to 24 there are zero deaths attributed to myocarditis so the slightly higher risk of
myocarditis should not deter them from getting the vaccine because one it's still very rare in those
circumstances and two the risk of myocarditis is higher after covet infection compared to vaccine
and when it comes to younger children that risk is even lower also that smaller dose of the vaccine
is expected to further minimize that risk and based on pfizer's data for the 5 to
11 age group in this most recent study there were zero cases of myocarditis or pericarditis
the side effects for children from this clinical trial are comparable to those
from the adolescent study now according to the fda if side effects did occur after the vaccine
the most common ones in the adolescent trial were pain at the injection site
fatigue headache chills muscle pain fever and joint pain so if those adolescents did have
side effects come up they generally were gone within one to three days now you take that and
you compare that with the data from the age 5 to 11 group it was basically more of the same
except the side effects occurred much less frequently and were generally milder for example
fever was a side effect at a rate of 6.5 percent compared to 17 percent of the 16 to 25 year group
it's also important to note that allergies to pfizer's vaccine ingredients like polyethylene
glycol very rare the vaccine does not contain eggs preservatives or latex
as of the making of this video 191 million americans are fully vaccinated the vast majority
with the mrna vaccines pfizer and moderna this includes adolescents and the millions of doses
given in that age group the vaccines have been under the most intense safety monitoring ever
and we can say for certain that the vaccine is very safe and very effective
and based on the pfizer data for ages 5 to 11 they're safe for that age group as well
although covid vaccines are new the mrna technology for them is not as they've been
studied for about 15 years just like water our bodies naturally contain mrna molecules
and the mrna molecules from the vaccine are destroyed and don't linger in our body
so based on that scientists and medical experts have zero reason to believe that they're not
safe for our growing bodies and would not have an impact on puberty fertility or brain development
the fda and cdc have not yet weighed in on this matter for this age group
but for ages 12 and up the cdc says it's safe to get the flu and other vaccines
at the same time as the covid vaccine saying the side effects are generally the same
when they're either given alone or in combination together
yes the safety database size for this age group
is actually considered to be on the higher end in terms of numbers
the fda has actually supported licensure for other vaccines that had smaller numbers in those
studies right now this is still to be determined and would likely come down to a discussion with
you and your child's pediatrician now overall the risk of reinfection in children appears to be low
and that's based on a review of 172 children who had covid only four of them had reinfection
one to three weeks after they had a negative test with that said we know that in adults that
covid infection doesn't generate the same level of immunity compared to the vaccines
so would i give this vaccine to my children if i had children aged 5 to 11. i would and i'd feel
very comfortable doing so when i went to college i majored in biology with a minor in biochemistry
then four years of med school and 12 years as a practicing physician
so i understand the science i understand mrna molecules vaccines and immunology and i understand
scientific literature that's why i was very comfortable getting the vaccine
when it first came out in december of last year seeing what i'm seeing with the best data that we
have available i would not hesitate to vaccinate my child regardless my recommendation for you is
to speak to your child's pediatrician that way you can do what's best for your child