CDC director defends decision to overrule expert panel on Covid booster shots for health and other front-line workers
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Thursday defended herself for having overruled an expert panel on whether health care workers and other front-line workers should be offered Covid-19 booster shots, saying her decision was based on how she would have voted, had she been able to cast a vote.
Walensky insisted she made the call without consulting the White House, which had announced in mid-August a plan to give booster shots to all Americans 16 years of age and older, even though the Food and Drug Administration had not yet approved any company’s booster shots. Currently only one booster jab has been authorized — the one made by Pfizer and BioNTech.
