increase in minimum wage. watch the first two hours, 1:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. online at c-span.org or listen with every c-span radio app. ♪♪ >> who are watching c-span2, unfiltered view of government. c-span2 created by america's cable television company. today brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span2 two years as a public service. ♪♪ >> monday the last hour of our "washington journal", we are going to take a look at the government's response to the covid-19 pandemic, a deeper look into how they forgot about vaccinations. today we are talkingng about fda and cdc's advisory committees. a senior writer with staff use

here to talk about these two advisory committees, let's begin with the fda. what is there advisory committee? >> the advisory committee helps them on issues related to the approval of vaccinations, vaccines vaccines and related biological products advisory committee, mostly people -- [inaudible] >> they are set to meet this week. what are they expected to talk about? >> you remember when the fdada s under political pressure to fast-track the vaccines and then commissioner stephen was trying verywa hard to safeguard the process to approve vaccines, make sure they were based on science, not political

expediency, made the commitment that it would reach every time there's a new covered vaccine to be considered for emergency use authorization. since then, he's kept that promise every time, he's no longer in office but the fda has kept that promise everyy time a new covered vaccine is ready by fda to continue to consider whether or not tode issue emergency use authorization, convened meeting of for pack and that's what's happening this week to look at the johnson & johnson vaccine. >> we will have coverage about meetingg here on c-span. who sits on this advisory committee? how do you get on? >> a variety of experts, 15 voting members and a few members

but the fda also has the right to add people to the community on a case-by-case basis. if they feel there is a need for more expertise in a particular area and currently sitting on the committee, people on the committee are often infectious disease experts, internal medicine experts, biostatistician's, people who have experience with the vaccine programs, people in general have a fair amount of knowledge about vaccinations, how they work and are used. in termsms of how you get on the committee, one can apply, you can apply yourself to be considered or nominated, sometimes, i think people, for instance paul off it, your

watchers may know, an expert at children's hospital the love you, i asked how he got to be on the committee and he said he had no clue. his and asked if he should do it and he agreed. >> are they in the privatel sector? >> their is one industry left on the committee but they do not vote. one person designated as a representative on the current committee, that person is a lawyer but someone is there to make sure the consumers views might be taken into consideration. >> there are 15 voting members, three ex officio members, one nonvoting member served as industry representativeem as hen

was just talking about, they are four-year terms. do they get paid? >> they do not get paid. in normal times, if they have to go to washington, wherever meetings are held, they be compensated for the cost of their travel but they do not get paid. >> what's the incentive to serve on this advisory ay board? >> these are interesting discussions opportunity to influence policy. a lot of the people in the community care deeply about the related to vaccine use probably getting back to the community. >> we are talking about the w vaccine rollout, the rule of the advisory committee for the fda

and cdc play, here are dividing lines. eastern central part of the country, if you live in mountain pacific area, (202)748-8001. if you've already been vaccinated, we want to hear from you two to seven-point 68002. what are your questions? thoughts about the role the fda, cdc is playing by the biden administration.ts was this committee in place during the trump administration when president biden took over, were some people replaced? >> the committee has been in place for years, the trump presidency and numbers haven't been r replaced for former term. i should say they have stringent rules about conflict of interest.

some of the peoplees on it arent actually ceded to discuss the covid vaccines because they have conflict she was one of the investigators on the clinical trial for covered vaccine, she cannot sit on any of the meetings related to covid vaccines. i know of another person typically on this who can't sit either because her institution was doing a trial. she wasn't involved but it was considered conflict so she has to sit out all the covered vaccine related sessions. >> argus, senior writer, you heard her refer to it as verb pack, fda's advisory committee. what role specifically when it comes to this vaccination did

this advisory play? >> the role of this committee is advised about whether or not to approve a vaccine and who to approve it for in normal times. in the case of covid vaccines, the fda is not currently licensing for emergency use authorizations this committee, anytime there's a manufacturing where they think they have enough evidence to apply for emergency use authorization, this committee will be called to look at the data to sort through it, see if there are concerns they have and generally what will be happening, ask them a series of questions, should we issue emergency use authorization? if so, what ages? there might be more in-depth

questions theyy might add. should we take a position on using this vaccine in pregnant people? that is a challenging one because so far, none of the vaccines, and of the have data to show whether or not the vaccines are effective in pregnant women. typically and that raised, question whether or not to say no or leave it up to the woman and her physician. >> the fda advisory committee will be meeting the boy 261 of those emergency authorization requests, johnson & johnson vaccine. we'll have coverage here on c-span. the lines are lining up. what does the cdc advisory committee, what role do they play in vaccination? >> the cdc's committee, advised the committee on immunization

practices. a group of experts, many, pediatricians, adults, family physicians, people who have done vaccination trials in the past also represent on that committee, 15 voting members, members who represent federal agencies like the fda and also interesting 29 nonvoting, representatives representing an organization who have an interest in vaccinations. american academy of pediatrics will the american college of obstetricians, they attend meetings and contribute to the discussion but they don't vote. this committee deals with vaccines after they've been approved for use either through

license or emergency use authorizations. what this committee does is look at should be vaccinated. covid pandemic is also setting guidelines, federal guidelines for who should come first in the vaccination program. you would have heard earlier healthcare workers should be first followed by people 75 -- healthcare workers first and then residents of nursing homes and after that, people 75 and is centrall workers. those are the people setting those kinds of priority. >> robin in pennsylvania. >> hi, helen. i'm just wondering, i don't want to get a shot because i'm a nervous wreck. iou asked doctors and they just

say yeah, get the shot. i have a lot of questions. i have upper respiratory problems. all of a sudden, i take medications i took for years and i'm allergic to it. i had a bad shoulder, got a shot and had that reaction to now i am afraid and i want to know who else i can call aboute my concerns before i get the shot. >> i'm not am physician so i hae to be careful about how i answer a question like that but i would wonder about how nervous you might be walking around without protection against covid. this is a very serious disease and for somebody who has respiratory issues, it could be a serious disease for you. i think talking to your doctor is a way of making sense more perhaps talking to friends who have gotten the shot and after they had, they see how they feel

about it, those might be approaches you might want to take. >> your vaccinated, larry? >> yes, ma'am. came down with covid in november, i work for the dod so i was able to get vaccinated. just got my second shot two weeks ago. no issues. glad i did it. i wish more americans would do it. i do believe the biden administration needs to utilize full services of the dod to get these americans vaccinated because obviously most states the governors, t county executives, etc., they have no clue what they are doing as far as the organization of it. that's' all. >> you have a follow-up on that? >> that t was not a question, a

comment. i think it's fair to say the early stage of the rollout was a bit cheeky. also probably true it was always going to be shaky, it's very difficult. we never try to vaccinate the entire population. in this case, we are going to try to vaccinate most of them twice except for with the j&j vaccine which is one dose. it's a very difficult task especially when you think about it, you're not just say everybody lineup we will get to you when we get to you. we are saying we will only these people to come forward now and the rest of you, wait. that's a very difficult job to do. things would be more swiftly now but there's a problem in terms of the amount of vaccine available. very little vaccine coming in so i am not certain. i am fairly sure as many route

to getting vaccine into arms as can be would be helpful but the big issue at this time is how much vaccine is available. >> pat in new york, is that right? >> yes. thank you for having me. i want to make some statements and you can comment on them. we have a shortage of vaccines, yet we are shipping vaccines pfizer's, throughout the nation. without boasting they are providing vaccines to teenagers. united states has the greatest problem right now with this infection. parts of the country, you have a greater problem in california, new york where you want to snuff it out, i'd imagine but in any case, i read an article, a few of them in the past year where we are being judged in this

country because we are more concerned about our economics than we are with the help of the people. many countries have shut down, boris johnson shut down the uk because of the new e117 which is now down in the u.s. and over 40 states in this country. long island this morning, they announced they found the first case of the south african. in nassau county. so canada has shut down all these nonessential businesses where you can catch the virus. bars and restaurants. these people are getting checks monthly to keep them out of circulation. in these countries, is more important to shut down. in china, where it first started in wuhan, they are celebrating chinese new year when a year ago, people were in the sidewalks dying. the initiative to do it has to do over the economic concerns, they were able to attack it a lot better where we haven't --

>> understood, helen, your reaction to what you heard from the color. >> this is sort of out of my range but i'd be curious to know which countries you think are vaccinating teenagers because the only vaccine approved for use under these age of 18 is the pfizer and that's only, they have not been tested yet most teens and certainly not children so i'd be very surprised the countries are using them in that way yet. particularly, given the highest risk is for elderly people and people who have pre-existing health conditions, i don't think they be vaccinating children or

teens at this time. it's not the priority. >> stephen from california. >> hi, i'd like to tell you that before the coronavirus status i started going to this church, i'm not going to say who it is, anyway. i had cholesterol 2150, a heart murmur and i stopped eating meat and started doing loma linda university, these people, they live to be over 100. because of the diet. anyway, i went from 250 cholesterol down to 195 probably less than that. my heart murmur went away, i

lost 30 pounds, i was 250 and i went down to 229 or something like that. it's like night and day. >> i'm going to leave it there. we are short on time so i'm going to ask you about the cdc advisory committee you mentioned. they decide vaccinated. how did they come up with the priority list? >> they have a work group comprised of staff in the centers for disease control and prevention and also members of the ac ft and also outside experts coming and help work on these things. they look at things like category two and also who the disease hit hardest. they do modeling to look at, give it to this group first and

who later and what we might expect to see in terms of overall loss of life and illness and hospitalization. they look atk it that way and make recommendations i will say at the end of the day, these are only recommendations and they go out to the states and they are leeway for governors to decide to use theser recommendations r follow other recommendations so you will have viewers know each state is not vaccinated same people in the same order. >> has this committee or federal government responded to this in the united kingdom to delay the second dose because they are seeing 90% protection in the first dose? >> that wouldn't be a zip right

away, that's more of an fda decision at this time so under the emergency use authorization each of thebe vaccines have been issued, the ones currently in use, based on the data generated will say yes, it should be given at certain intervals with the vaccine, four-week intervals, if anybody wanted to change the interval, they'dva have to go bk to the fda and get them to change emergency use authorization and it's conceivable that discussion would help them, they might be called back into session and asked their advice on it. ...

regarding thing called antigenic seniority which is a concern. it's important and i'm not going to address it, this is where the body specifically learns about the original exposure ofimmunity and therefore when you give the boosters, the boosters apparently don't work as well . maybe she can discuss that >> i'm going to leave it there ellen and helen brands well, can you jump in? >> i haven't heard about that in terms of coronavirusbut it's interesting and i will definitely look into it. i know michael at harbor , that phenomenon is known in

influenza. we typically always respond best to the first influenza infection we have so if your first influenza infection in your lifetime was an h3n2, you're always going to have antibodies to that strain than any other flu strain that you encounter in your life and vaccine doses that you get later containing that will always boost your anti-body levels more than the vaccine willboost your antibodies to say h1 and one . that is a known phenomenon in flu, i don't know that that is true with coronavirus. i'll have to look into that. >> thank you very much for your time this morning andfor our viewers you can follow her recording@statnews.com. appreciate . >> thank you for having me. >> the ap headline, you