Top health experts met on Wednesday to discuss
COVID-19 booster shots after New Brunswick-based
Johnson &
Johnson announced an increase in the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine with a
second shot.
The panel was expected to advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the best way to
administer the additional vaccine doses. Currently, boosters
of the Pfizer vaccine are only approved for those 65 and older, or those at
high risk.
A group of protesters rallied outside the company's headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. The protest was not focused on
a second Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shot, but rather pandemic profiteering.
That’s what advocates from the AHF, AIDS Healthcare Foundation call what Johnson
& Johnson is doing with its vaccines.
The group protested as
part of its "Vaccinate Our World" campaign. The groups’ concern is about who is
getting access to the vaccine and how companies are profiting.
It says 57% of the world population has yet to
receive a single dose of any COVID-19 vaccine, yet, according to the Wall Street
Journal, doses of its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine are being produced in South
Africa, one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19. South Africa also has
the lowest vaccination rates. The vaccines, however, were being exported to
wealthier countries in Europe.
After significant public
outcry, the doses manufactured at Aspen Pharmacare's facility in South Africa
will now be shipped to African countries instead.
The group says Big Pharma is
also double dipping financially by doing so, getting billions from wealthier countries to produce
the drug then getting paid to ship the vaccine to countries with money instead
of those who now need it most.