FDA approval paves way for college vaccine mandates

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced its full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine last Monday, opening the door for colleges and universities that have been hesitant to require vaccines for students to begin instituting mandates, writes Alexis Gravely for Inside Higher Ed.

The vaccine will now be referred to as ‘Comirnaty’ rather than the Pfizer vaccine and has been approved for individuals 16 years of age and older. It will still be administered in two doses three weeks apart. “While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorisation, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product,” Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement.

While hundreds of institutions have already required their faculty, staff and students to get a COVID-19 vaccine, others said they were holding off until at least one of the vaccines received full FDA approval. Monday’s announcement is expected to make colleges and universities more comfortable with having a vaccine mandate, especially since other FDA-approved vaccinations – such as for tuberculosis or hepatitis B – are already required on most campuses.
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site