The concerning data from the world's largest clinical trial is rolling in, but governments are too hell bent on getting needles into arms to exercise caution with children - even though they have almost no chance of dying from Covid!
By EMILY CRAIG HEALTH REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE
Pfizer's Covid vaccine may pose more of a risk to boys, a study claimed today amid growing calls for No10 to rethink plans to dish out jabs to children.
New research has suggested boys are 14 times more likely to be struck down with a rare heart complication called myocarditis.
The data, from the US, will likely fuel an already fierce debate over Britain's decision to press ahead with inoculating all 16 and 17-year-olds.
Last week, the Government's advisory panel ruled older teenagers should be given their first dose. Ministers plan to invite them before they head back to schools and colleges in September.
But health officials have yet to make concrete plans for children to get top-ups. They want to wait for more safety data about myocarditis before pressing ahead.
Real-world data from the US, which has been vaccinating children for months, have shown teenage boys to be at a higher risk.
It prompted one member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which green-lighted the move to jab children, to admit different advice for boys was 'theoretically on the cards'.
There is already precedent for just giving vaccinating just one gender, with the HPV jab offered only to girls until 2018.
The new research, published in JAMA Cardiology, was based on an analysis of just 15 children struck down with myocarditis after getting Pfizer's vaccine — which will be given to British children. Only one was a girl.
The findings echo data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which suggests the risk is up to nine times higher among teenage boys.
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