Researchers who conducted a recent study examining the cumulative effect of booster shots on response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus have warned of the "potential risks with the continuous use" of boosters, describing how repeated immunization damages not only antibody response but also T-cell response to the virus.
"We found that the protective effects from the humoral immunity and cellular immunity established by the conventional immunization were both profoundly impaired during the extended vaccination course," they write.
The study used mice which had been genetically altered to model the human response to the novel coronavirus and has yet to be replicated in humans; however, the findings echo the results of other human studies showing that repeated booster shots raise the risk of infection. Use of mice in COVID studies is common and Pfizer's combination Wuhan-Omicron boosters were approved by the FDA based solely on a mouse study.
Meanwhile, Dr. Paul Offit, a key adviser to the FDA's vaccine panel, has gone public in advising against booster shots for younger and healthy people. "I believe we should stop trying to prevent all symptomatic infections in healthy, young people by boosting them with vaccines containing mRNA from strains that might disappear a few months later," he wrote in a recent paper.
Offit's position contradicts official FDA COVID vaccine guidelines which recommend booster shots for everyone over the age of six months. His position, however, seems to be supported by a recent statement by Prof. Cyrille Cohen of Bar Ilan University, who admitted on French television several months ago that the risk posed by COVID to the young is essentially "zero."