More great news on progress towards an escape path from this pandemic: On Monday, vaccine scientists from Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca revealed results from a “Stage 1/2 trial,” recommending their item might be able to produce resistance without causing severe damage. Similar, however smaller-scale outcomes, were posted just last week for another candidate vaccine produced by the biotech firm Moderna, in collaboration with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
As both these groups and others push ahead into the final stage of screening, it’s important that the general public has a clear and well balanced understanding of this work– one that cuts through all the marketing and buzz. We’re not off to an excellent start. The evidence up until now recommends that we’re getting blinkered by these groups’ PR, and so seduced by stories of their remarkable speed that we’re misplacing everything else. In particular, neither the mainstream media nor the medical press has actually provided much attention to the two vaccines’ prospective disadvantages– in specific, their risk of nasty adverse impacts, even if they’re not deadly. This sort of puffery doesn’t just help to develop a misconception; it may also dry the tinder for the future spread of vaccine fear-mongering.
Back in May, a CNN report explained the Oxford group as being “the most aggressive in painting the rosiest picture” of its item, so let’s start with them. Just how rosy is the Oxford picture really? It’s definitely true that today’s news shows the vaccine has the prospective to offer security from Covid-19 But there are flies in the lotion. After the very first clinical trial for this vaccine began in April, for example, the researchers included brand-new research study arms in which people got acetaminophen every six hours for 24 hours after the injection. That’s not featured in their marketing, obviously, and I saw no conversation of this uncommon action in media coverage in early summer season. Papers only stated the vaccine had been proven “ safe with rhesus monkeys,” and did not trigger any negative effects in those animal tests. It was a stressing signal though: How rough a trip were people having with this vaccine? Was the acetaminophen indicated to keep down fever, headaches, malaise– or all of the above?
The Oxford group is also offering acetaminophen to participants in an advanced, phase 3 trial now underway in Brazil, too. In another significant research study of the vaccine, including 10,000 people in the UK, you can’t get involved if you have an allergic reaction or condition that might be made worse with acetaminophen. No reference of the additional drug, however, in the very same group’s trial in South Africa
Journalists might have pressed them on this problem months back. The first individuals to get vaccines are carefully selected to be the least most likely to have an unfavorable response. If the Oxford vaccine is knocking them around badly, it may not bode well for the rest of us. Don’t get me incorrect: a day or 2 of discomfort or health problem wouldn’t prevent me from getting an efficient Covid-19 vaccine. I believe we need to be prepared if that’s going to be the case.
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