Dear Mr Halfon,

AS a constituent with health issues I sincerely request that you lobby the Health Secretary Matt Hancock on my behalf regarding the efficacy of increasing the interval between doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine beyond the manufacturer’s stated interval of three weeks?
Reuters reported on 30 December that Britain’s regulator had that same day changed the dose interval for the Pfizer vaccine from 21 days to “at least 21 days”, and the second dose was advised to be given up to 12 weeks later.

Pfizer released a statement in response to this change saying: “There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.” They added: “While decisions on alternative dosing regimens reside with health authorities, Pfizer believes it is critical… to ensure each recipient is afforded the maximum possible protection, which means immunisation with two doses of the vaccine.”

However, in the United States a briefing document was published by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on 10 December detailing the authorisation of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In the Executive Summary it says: “The proposed dosing regimen is 2 doses, 30 µg each, administered 21 days apart.” 

Consequently, please ask Matt Hancock what published scientific research papers were accepted by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and/or the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to validate their conclusion that intervals could be increased up to 12 weeks? 

Regards

David Foreman