This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Plato. A bit later in the hour, we're taking your questions

about spring gardening, whether you're in your first round of planting or still getting the

soil ready. We've got answers to your questions, and we're back in the studio live taking your calls.

Our number 1-844-724-82525-5 or 844-Sai Talk.

But first, earlier this week, the FDA convened a panel of experts to discuss the best use of COVID-19

boosters and the possibility of variant-specific vaccines.

This comes after last week's authorization of a second booster for people over the age of 50

and others who are immunocompromised. Joining me to talk about this and other science news of the week is

Maggie Kerth, Senior Science Writer at 538 based in good old Minneapolis. Welcome back. Maggie,

nice to have you. Nice to be here. Thanks so much. Let's talk about this meeting

after their meeting this week. Did the FDA panel come up with any new recommendations on booster

timing or new vaccine production? No, I mean, some of the booster timing recommendations had actually

happened before the panel got together, which was something that they ended up asking the FDA about pretty early on in the meeting.

And they came away with about the same level of as they went in.

You know, this is something where both the FDA and CDC officials have said in the past

that boosting everybody every four or five months is just not a good long-term strategy, you know,

just on the basis of logistics and public buy-in alone. But coming out of this meeting,

it seems like there's still not really a good plan in place for an alternative, whether

that's how we're going to get new vaccine or new variant-specific vaccines authorized or even

how we're going to decide in a really evidence-based way how often people need new boosters of

existing vaccines. Yeah, so that meeting did not end with a concrete plan to study.

It did not.

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