The Pfizer vaccine, which Israel has used almost exclusively to combat COVID-19, works remarkably well at preventing hospitalization and serious illness, even against the Delta variant.
Unless you’re immunocompromised like me.
People with blood cancers, including follicular lymphoma (which is what I have), are discovering to their shock and disbelief that even after two doses, they are showing little to no antibody response in their blood.
Which means that in an encounter with COVID-19, folks like me have no more protection than we did before the vaccines.
The solution seems to be a third (booster) shot, which in some cases can lead to a five- and even tenfold increase in antibodies, putting the immunocompromised on at least a somewhat level playing field with the general vaccinated public.
So it was to my great relief when my health fund, Maccabi Healthcare Services, called me on Monday to say I should come to their main office that afternoon to get my booster.
But when I arrived at my appointed time, the nurse looked at my file, and then at me, confused.
“Did you have an organ transplant?” she asked.
“No, I’ve got cancer. Lymphoma.”
“We’re only authorizing third shots for organ transplants,” she told me.
That was in fact the case on Sunday. But by Monday morning, the Health Ministry had expanded the criteria to include a long list of conditions, including multiple myeloma, leukemia, bone-marrow transplants, patients treated with CAR-T therapy and certain rheumatological and autoimmune diseases.
“You called ME,” I reminded the nurse. “This morning.”
The nurse picked up the phone to her supervisor, and then again to her supervisor’s supervisor, until she finally got the approval. In truth, eavesdropping on the conversation, I think it was less about who was eligible and more about how she would enter the third dose into the computer system. Bureaucracy almost stymied me.
“Are you sure you want it today?” the nurse quizzed me. “If you wait until next week, it will probably be authorized for everyone your age.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course, I wanted it now. Since the highly contagious Delta variant became dominant in Israel, cases have shot up. If I was going to catch COVID-19, now would be a likely time.
As my hematologist warned, although for other vaccinated individuals, catching a case of COVID-19 might feel like a bad cold, for me it could still be deadly. And, although I’m not currently in treatment, I did a year and a half of chemo and immunotherapy, which nearly destroyed my white blood count.
That’s how I became one of the first people in Israel, and maybe the world, to receive a booster shot so soon. Pfizer has applied for FDA approval to begin offering third shots in the US. But Israel didn’t want to wait and is giving the boosters now.
If the Health Ministry determines that everyone in the country should get a booster, an apparently secret agreement hammered out between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla stipulates that Pfizer will move up delivery of vaccine shipments to as early as August.
That’s a similar strategy to the one former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu used with Pfizer in late 2020, when he proposed essentially swapping doses for data about how the vaccine is working in the real world.
Pfizer now needs to prove that a booster shot can protect the most vulnerable among us and maybe stop the spread of the Delta variant.
Anti-vaxxers will undoubtedly have a field day with Israel’s aggressive approach to a third dose. “They’re experimenting on us again,” they will cry. “And this time it hasn’t even been approved in the US!”
I don’t care. I am so grateful to have that magic mRNA in my arm and happy to be a guinea pig if it keeps me alive. And I’m as overjoyed as I was after getting the first two doses that Israel is leading the world when it comes to confronting COVID-19.
May we all know only good health.