A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official on April 6 defended the agency’s recent decision to authorize fourth COVID-19 vaccine doses for millions of Americans without convening its expert advisory panel. Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, downplayed the authorization, claiming it was not “a major expansion or a major change.” Officials “looked over the data and felt was reasonable to do at the time,” he said, citing information from the United Kingdom and Israel that indicated the protection from a third shot, or first booster, has been waning amid circulation of the Omicron virus variant. Marks was responding to Dr. James Hildreth, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College, who sits on the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), a panel of outside advisers that the agency typically consults before making decisions like clearing additional vaccine doses. The FDA convened the VRBPAC …