The Week in Short US

FDA Authorizes Updated COVID-19 Vaccine for Children as Young as 6 Months

THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION has granted emergency authorization to the updated Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as a booster for children as young as 6 months old, even though Pfizer has produced no clinical efficacy data for any age group.

FDA officials said the emergency clearance was based on trial data that showed 60 children had “an immune response” after receiving the updated bivalent booster, and trial data that found 60 young children experienced side effects such as fatigue, diarrhea, and vomiting after bivalent vaccination.

Gun Rights Group Responds to Biden’s New Executive Order

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN has signed an executive order designed to advance his gun-control agenda after his repeated calls for a ban on socalled assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Second Amendment advocates responded quickly to Biden’s action.

“Crimes are committed by criminals. Until President Biden and his allies decide to go after violent criminals, violence will continue to spiral out of control as it has. The focus of our laws and efforts should be on the criminal element and not on law-abiding Americans,” a statement from the National Rifle Association reads.

Biden’s order will require background checks on more than just retail firearms sales, promote the adoption and use of “Red Flag Laws,” make gun dealer inspection reports public, call for stricter enforcement of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and request that the Federal Trade Commission issue a report on the marketing of firearms to children by gun makers.

COVID-19

FBI, State Department Miss Deadline to Produce COVID-19 Origin Information

THE FBI AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT didn’t provide documents by the deadline in response to a congressional request for information on the origins of the COVID-19 virus, according to a House panel.

The information was requested on Feb. 27 by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and by Rep. Brad R. Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The deadline for providing the documents was March 13.

“We have not received documents at this time, but we are in communication with the agencies about the chairman’s request, and we expect compliance,” a spokesperson for the subcommittee told The Epoch Times on March 13.

The authorization means children aged 6 months to 5 years will be encouraged to get a booster dose just two months after the final dose of a three-dose Pfizer primary series.

Feds Propose Rules to Crack Down on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION has proposed a new set of nationwide standards for drinking water, seeking to limit the levels of certain fluorinated chemicals associated with cancer that can build up in the human body over time.

The draft regulation, published by the Environmental Protection Agency, targets six chemicals known by the abbreviations PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFBS, PFHxS, and GenX. They have been found in drinking water supplies across the nation.

These chemicals are among the thousands of types of PFAS, a broad class of artificial compounds often referred to as “forever chemicals” because it takes an extremely long time for them to break down in the environment. Some of them never fully break down.