The news last week of former President Joe Biden’s advanced prostate cancer has more people thinking and talking about the condition.
About 1 in 8 men in the U.S. are diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lives. It’s the most-diagnosed cancer in men and the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in American men after lung cancer. That’s according to the American Cancer Society.
In this installment of our series, “In Good Health,” we talk about how to detect and treat prostate cancer. Then, we switch gears to talk about the Food and Drug Administration’s plans to potentially restrict access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Here’s a statement provided to us by the F.D.A:
“The COVID-19 public health emergency has officially ended, and we are entering a new phase in our response to the virus. A rubber-stamping approach to approving COVID boosters in perpetuity without updated clinical trial data under the Biden Administration is now over.
As outlined in NEJM, the FDA’s new framework for vaccine approvals will prioritize high-risk populations while simultaneously requiring robust, gold-standard clinical data for low-risk individuals. This evidence-based approach ensures that vulnerable groups continue to have access to COVID vaccines.
The framework published in NEJM provides forward-looking guidance for a risk stratified approach, rooted in the best available science, to inform future vaccine policy. With the COVID pandemic behind us, it is time to adopt a common-sense approach to COVID policy, grounded in gold-standard science, that balances the needs of all populations.”
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