The Debate Over Booster Shots for Covid

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/opinion/letters/covid-booster-shots.html

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To the Editor:

Re “3rd Pfizer Shot for Key Groups Gets Clearance” (front page, Sept. 23):

With the current focus on preventing severe Covid-19 disease, we may be slighting our goal of herd immunity. Although the Pfizer vaccine remains highly protective against severe disease, it appears to lose effectiveness against mild or asymptomatic infection. This allows the virus to infect vaccinated people, who can then infect unvaccinated people.

Our best hope for herd immunity is to decrease circulation of the virus among people who have received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Giving a third dose will raise the level of serum antibodies, which are three to five times higher after a third shot than after two shots. Protecting against both severe disease and mild or asymptomatic infections has a much greater public health benefit than just preventing severe disease.

We shouldn’t give up on conferring herd immunity against Covid-19. A third dose given to all adults is likely to give us greater control of the pandemic than if we focus on vaccinating only elderly and immunocompromised people and those at increased risk because of job exposure.

Dan M. GranoffSan FranciscoThe writer is former director of the Center for Immunobiology and Vaccine Development, University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

To the Editor:

I have read all of The Times’s articles on Covid boosters in recent weeks. They leave me feeling very uncomfortable. I am not one to feel uncomfortable about vaccines. I’ve been vaccinated for just about everything since infancy. But the rush to boosters is something else.

For one, I’ve never had to have a third shot in six months — for anything.

Second, it is clear that the scientific and medical world is divided on the wisdom of these third shots. There was no such division on taking the first two shots. That raises additional doubts.

Finally, the rush to boosters by some, even while the debate is ongoing, is enough to give me further pause. Fear, not science, is clearly the driving motive here.

All of this just to say: There are too many questions and too much confusion. I’m in wait-and-see mode until the smoke clears.

Douglas C. GreeneFalls Church, Va.

To the Editor:

Re “U.S. Booster Policy Is in Flux as Dissent Mounts” (front page, Sept. 16):

The F.D.A. is like a fire department that lets a building burn because it hasn’t been established that the new fire truck is capable of putting out fires. There is strong evidence that booster shots restore antibody levels and some evidence that they reduce the chance of contracting the Delta variant. By waiting for scientific certainty before authorizing boosters for all adults, the F.D.A. is taking the reckless approach rather than the conservative one.

Joshua P. HillNew London, Conn.

To the Editor:

Re “Where Are the Tests?,” by David Leonhardt (The Morning Newsletter, nytimes.com, Sept. 21):

There was good reason to hope for a return to competence with the new presidential administration. Instead, we see a Food and Drug Administration that drags its feet on the two most important measures for stopping Covid: broad vaccine and booster approvals and ready availability of inexpensive rapid tests. Where are the tests — and where is the outrage?

Kenneth A. MargolisChappaqua, N.Y.

To the Editor:

Re “The Sexism of the Elizabeth Holmes Trial,” by Ellen Pao (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, Sept. 19):

Ms. Pao sees sexism where it doesn’t exist. The business and investing world is full of stories of men who have been charged and convicted of defrauding investors. Many of the Theranos whistle-blowers and/or witnesses for the prosecution are women who want the truth to come out about the fraud allegedly perpetrated by Ms. Holmes.

David JankowskiIndian Wells, Calif.

To the Editor:

Ellen Pao tries to equate what Elizabeth Holmes did with the many wrongdoings of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Travis Kalanick and Adam Neumann. There is a critical difference, though: None of these C.E.O.s produced a completely fraudulent product like Theranos’s blood-testing technology. While the culture of workplace sexism in Big Tech is deplorable, I am not sure it has anything to do with the Theranos hoax and how it should be addressed in the court of law.

John SorrellChappaqua, N.Y.

To the Editor:

Ellen Pao’s piece on Elizabeth Holmes raises fair questions but ignores a key one: What part did the media play in the Theranos fiasco? Ms. Holmes fit the narrative of the story the media wanted to tell, but one that had little to do with the reality of the dangerous fraud taking place at Theranos. There were numerous magazine covers with Ms. Holmes’s photo and numerous feature stories.

The most important story of Theranos is how easily the media can be fooled.

Lanny ZieringLos Angeles

To the Editor:

Ellen Pao talks about Elizabeth Holmes’s “compelling vision.” It appears that the only thing compelling was her ability to convince people that her vision made sense. She had no scientific expertise, her idea was not logical and her company released inaccurate lab results that could have led to people dying. There is nothing sexist about the choice to prosecute her.

Gail ScullyBostonThe writer is an infectious diseases physician.

To the Editor:

I read “A Medical Career, at a Cost: Infertility” (Science Times, Sept. 14) with interest, and I was honored to see your citation of my research into infertility among women in medicine originally published in 2016.

It saddens me that, nearly a decade after the initiation of our study, women in medicine (and indeed, every profession) continue to struggle invisibly with fertility and childbearing.

As a reproductive endocrinologist, I have seen countless 40-something-year-old female physicians seeking fertility treatment, only to be genuinely shocked that their peak egg number and quality — that is, their peak fertility — has long since passed.

Often the only reliable treatment in the setting of substantial reproductive aging is using donor eggs from a much younger woman, which is infrequently a desired solution.

Despite decades of medical education, most physicians and other medical professionals have never had sufficient training in basic human reproduction. As you might imagine, the problem is worse among nonmedical professionals.

Family planning, to the limited extent it is taught in our schools, focuses entirely on the prevention of undesired pregnancy. Ironically, no attention is given to the limits of human fertility and the question of how to conceive when a pregnancy is desired. There is no reliable time in any American’s life — including our physicians’ — when they are taught even the basic reality and limitations of how to become pregnant.

We must put our efforts into teaching comprehensive family planning — that is, helping individuals of all backgrounds create the families they desire when and how they would like to.

Natalie Clark StentzAnn Arbor, Mich.

To the Editor:

Re “A Novelist Speaks for the Trees” (Arts pages, Sept. 15):

Richard Powers’s desire to “challenge our innate anthropocentrism, both in literature and how we live,” as your article puts it, is right in line with the current romanticization of nature. But in a world where so many people are besieged by poverty, Covid and racism, don’t we need more focus on our fellow humans rather than less?

Felicia Nimue AckermanProvidence, R.I.The writer is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.