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Senior US health officials on Wednesday repeatedly offered assurances to members of Congress that an eventual vaccine for COVID-19 will be released only when it is absolutely safe to do so, despite President Donald’s suggestions. Trump that you can bring one to market sooner. Election day.
Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams and the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Dr. Francis Collins promised senators that policy would remain absent from the scientific process of administering a vaccine to achieve the highest possible rate of public confidence .
“There will be no shortcuts,” Dr. Adams, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, told the Senate Health Committee. “This vaccine will be safe, it will be effective or it will not budge.”
Dr. Collins offered similar comments, saying he is “cautious optimism” that a vaccine will be available by the end of the year.
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“I cannot say enough that decisions about how this vaccine will be evaluated and evaluated will be based on science,” he said. “That may be the only base … Otherwise, I won’t be a part of it.”
Photo by GREG NASH / POOL / AFP / Getty
The assurances from some of the government’s top health officials came when Trump suggested a vaccine might be available before Election Day, despite warnings from health experts that such a schedule is extremely unlikely. Democrats, including the Democratic presidential nominations of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have suggested that Trump could try to prematurely pass a vaccine to increase his chances at the polls.
“We will have a vaccine very soon. Maybe even before a special date,” Trump said over the weekend, mocking his Democratic opponents for suggesting he might politicize a vaccine. “You know what date I’m talking about.”
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On Tuesday, two days after Trump’s comments, nine major drug companies sought to bolster public confidence in any future vaccine by taking the extraordinary step of pledging not to rush the testing process, saying in a joint statement that they will “make the safety and well-being of vaccinated people is our top priority. “
A phase 3 study being conducted by AstraZeneca, one of the companies that signed the security pledge, was halted Tuesday after a serious reaction from a participant. But Dr. Collins said the move was not unusual in the vaccine evaluation process.
Dr. Collins explained that any vaccine will have to undergo multiple levels of review after being shown to be effective in a phase 3 trial before it can be approved. These include independent evaluations by a Safety and Data Monitoring Board comprised of scientists and representatives from the Food and Drug Administration.
In an effort to speed up the distribution of a vaccine once one is finally approved, Dr. Collins told senators that they have eliminated downtime in the process and that the federal government has invested heavily in the manufacture of various vaccines. They realize that they cannot ultimately be viable.
“None of the safety and efficacy evaluations will be omitted or abbreviated,” added Dr. Collins.
