Andrew Brandt Pfizer Covid vaccine study for the effects of adolescents

Epidemiology is not on the list of hobbies of an average teenager. But it’s for Andrew Brandt, a 13-year-old who lives in New Orleans and is enrolled in the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine for children.

“When the pandemic started, it was sad because I wanted to help people and I felt like I couldn’t do that,” Andrew told CNBC Make It.

Finding the Pfizer process for his age group felt like a tangible way to participate and also suited his interest in science and medicine.

In early 2021, Andrew asked his mother if she could join the process. At the time, Pfizer’s Covid vaccine had already been approved for emergency use in people over the age of 16, and the company is recruiting younger volunteers between the ages of 12 and 15.

“Initially, it was an agony” that decided to let him enroll or not, Christine Brandt, his mother, says CNBC Make It. “What kind of parent is ‘Yes, please use my child as a guinea pig?’ ””

Andrew has done a lot of research on how mRNA vaccines work and the potential risks of being in a clinical trial. “I like to try a lot and learn everything I can,” he says.

After passing on his findings to his parents, the family consulted with everyone, from his doctors to grandparents and family friends who are doctors before making the decision.

In early January, Andrew and his mother went to Ochsner Medical Center for their first dose of vaccine or placebo.

“I was pretty calm because I was in the second stage, so they thought it was safe,” says Andrew. “I knew that if I got sick, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

He was sent home with a paper disc used to measure any redness or swelling at the place where he got the shot, as well as an application to use to track his symptoms every day.

Although neither the study participants nor the researchers officially know whether Andrew received the vaccine or a placebo (it’s a double-blind study), Andrew says he had a robust response after receiving the first injection. He says he had a fever, felt painful and tired and had pain around the injection site.

Within 36 hours, the symptoms “diminished instantly, as if a light switch had stopped them,” says his mother.

At school, Brandt’s friends and teachers (who were not yet eligible for the vaccine) wanted to know about his experience.

“A lot of my friends have had a lot of questions because, well, it’s not something we know a lot about or are taught about,” says Andrew. As it turns out, one of his classmates was also in the process.

Brandt’s colleagues were most curious about how the shooting felt (how did he say he felt?), Whether he got sick and whether he deserved it or not, to which “I would definitely say yes,” he says.

On January 27, three weeks after the first blow, Andrew returned for the second.

With Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, side effects tend to be more pronounced after the second dose than the first. This is because two-dose vaccines work: the first dose is meant to trigger an immune response, and the second dose is based on it.

After receiving his second shot, Andrew had to hurry to a football championship match. (His team won second place.)

The next morning, Andrew says he had a fever and swollen lymph nodes near the arm where he was shot. His mother found him lying face down on the floor, so he stayed home from school.

“It was kind of scary to have a fever; I didn’t know how long it would last,” he says. “I had a lot of muscle spasms, so I practically stayed in bed for the rest of the day.”

Then, at the end of March, Andrew’s mother heard him coughing from his bedroom, which made her panic that something was wrong. According to the trial protocol, they had to contact Pfizer immediately and send a sample of nasal swab to the hospital to test Covid.

“It was like everyone was running and trying frantically to get real-time recordings,” says Christine. Fortunately, the test came back negative.

For the next two years, as part of the trial, Andrew will test for SARS-Cov-2 antibodies. If booster photos are needed in the future, he agrees to receive them from Pfizer as well.

“I’ve always wanted to do something in epidemiology,” says Andrew.

When Andrew was 8, he said he “went down a rabbit hole on YouTube,” following TED talks about the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak. was responsible for sequencing the Ebola virus genome.

Andrew found several videos on YouTube explaining the history of infectious diseases and the drug and was captivated and decided he wanted to become an epidemiologist.

“The most interesting thing for me is how viruses work in the body,” he says. (Viruses infect humans by killing cells or disrupting cell function. The body targets the invader by mounting an immune response, often through fever, white blood cells, and antibodies.)

Andrew considers John Snow, the “father of epidemiology” who identified the cause of the cholera outbreak in London in the 1800s, as one of his inspirations.

Going to high school, Andrew hopes to continue to expand his medical knowledge by taking courses in biology, anatomy and physiology. Then maybe he’ll look for infectious diseases.

His personal experience with the process only fueled his desire to pursue medicine, especially emergency medicine or trauma surgery.

“I think a good job in college would be to be a paramedic,” he says.

Now, thanks to the study in which Andrew and more than 2,000 other adolescents participated, Pfizer-BioNTech has data showing that the vaccine is 100% effective in adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15.

The company sent data to the Food and Drug Administration on March 31 for the emergency use authorization to be approved for the younger age group. Dr. Anthony Fauci said the amendment is “imminent” and hopes that high school students could be vaccinated by early fall.

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