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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

Why is it approved only for 60 years and older? Is it because of the fatal brain swelling and Guillain Barre syndrome side effects? I would like to give this to my expectant wife and 2 year old child

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GSK only registered for 60+ in their trial. Most likely because the clinical endpoints are more significant/easier to measure, and also because the safety trade-off is more weighted towards intervention.

To GP, I'm sorry your family isn't eligible yet. Pfizer has an in-progress vaccine for which they had good phase 3 results in both older adults and expectant mothers (looking at the outcomes for the infants once born). Their FDA application is in progress and miiiight be done by summer: https://www.health.com/rsv-vaccine-for-pregnant-moms-approva...

Fingers crossed for y'all. It would be awesome to remove RSV from the things you have to worry about as a new parent. (We had a pretty nasty case with our first. Didn't end up in the hospital but it was really close.)

I don't know the specifics in this situation but I work at a university where vaccines are actively developed (for many things). Unless there's a significant financial push, administration to children lags far behind to ensure that random autoimmune complications with vaccine are far below the risks of catching the virus and having a serious reaction.

Also, you can pretty much anticipate pregnant women will be the last two be approved for anything. Pregnancy complications are common enough that no one wants to mess with that whole situation until you're certain you won't have cross antigen reactivity in the host

Wife still hasn’t recovered from Covid shot. Injection Arm double the size of other arm.

Wow! Was this the first shot, second shot, or a booster?

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