James Krellenstein, one of the founders of PrEP4All, an AIDS advocacy group, said that wasn’t fast enough. He blames the FDA for not acting more quickly to scale up the supply and delaying an inspection of the vaccine maker’s plant in Denmark.
But dr. Robert Califf, the FDA commissioner, told reporters Thursday that his agency “went much faster than planned” as it needed to not only inspect the plant, but also verify that the vaccine was effective. “The only thing worse than not having a vaccine,” he said, “is having a vaccine that is widespread and ineffective.”
At the moment there is not enough vaccine to go around. On Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, wrote a letter to Mr. Becerra and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, complaining that New Jersey had not gotten its fair share. In the letter obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Murphy notes that New Jersey is close to New York, which has more cases of monkey pox than any other state.
He said his calculations showed that because of that proximity and the number of same-sex households in New Jersey, his state would bear 3 percent of the national burden of disease, but had received only 2.06 percent of the 131,000 available doses. as far. “Therefore, we do not believe that New Jersey has received a fair percentage of the available vaccine,” said Mr. Murphy.
Federal health officials say their allocation strategy depends on two factors: how many cases a state has and how many of its residents are at risk. The formula favors areas with at-risk populations — including men who have sex with men, who have HIV, or who are eligible for drugs that can reduce a person’s chances of getting infected with HIV, said Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, who helps lead indicate the monkeypox response for the CDC
After more than two years of the coronavirus pandemic, the monkeypox outbreak, which began in May, has presented a new challenge to beleaguered public health officials across the country. Congress has so far allocated no money for the response — although Senate Democrats proposed $21 billion in Covid spending on Thursday — and the public is tired of hearing about infectious diseases. The Biden administration estimates that an additional $7 billion is needed to fight monkey pox.