Henry Ford plays big role in Moderna vaccine trial
Dr. Kellie McFarlin was driven by personal reasons to join the COVID-19 Moderna vaccine trial at Henry Ford Hospital where she is a general surgeon.
“I joined the trial for two main reasons. First, as a mom of twin girls I wanted to do as much as I could to protect my family and also for my community to be involved to have diversity in the trial,’’ Dr. McFarlin said on a Monday Zoom call. “It was really important to me, to know the results could be reflective in use for the community I serve and live in.’’
Also early in the pandemic she lost a 5-year-old cousin.
“We were devastated by that information that she developed a rare complication from COVID and that really stuck with our family so we wanted to reach out what we could do to make a difference in our community in fighting the COVID pandemic,’’ Dr. McFarlin said.
Dr. McFarlin was one of more than 700 from Southeastern Michigan who participated in the Moderna COVID-19 trial at Henry Ford Hospital, the only Moderna trial site in Michigan.
Moderna announced Monday that early data from its mRNA vaccine trial showed it is 94.5 percent effective. The randomized, double- blind study is measuring the effectiveness of the vaccine in 30,000 people across the country. Half of the study volunteers received two doses of the vaccine and half received a placebo.
“We are very excited about the results, it’s really, really encouraging particularly at this time in the winter when we are (fighting the pandemic) … One of the very, very encouraging things is we’re seeing high efficacy for this two-dose vaccine,’’ said Dr. Paul Kilgore, a Henry Ford co-principal investigator in the vaccine trial.
The diversity of the Southeast Michigan participants was key to the success of the trial.
“It was incredibly important for Moderna to recruit a study that was representative of the population in the United States,’’ said Melanie Ivarsson, Ph.D., and chief development officer of Moderna based in Boston. “We actually took the decision about halfway through the trial to really slow down to ensure that all participants of all different backgrounds were given the appropriate amount of information and the opportunity to enroll in the study. That meant really focusing on ensuring that our information about our trial was getting to the right communities so people were making an informed decision. It takes some time to build trust.’
Ini the study of 30,000 participants nationwide 10 percent were African Americans and 20 percent were of Hispanic descent.
“In particular the Henry Ford Health System site did an incredible job of recruiting 9 percent of the African American community, just under 8 percent of the Hispanic community and nearly 7 percent from the Asian community,’’ Ivarsson said. “They did an incredible job, we’re incredibly grateful for the incredible work they did.’’
If the vaccine receives emergency use authorization from the FDA, which is expected, it will be given in two doses, 28 days apart.
“We are manufacturing our vaccine now so we do have doses available in the month of December,’’ Ivarsson said.
Henry Ford is also participating in a COVID-19 vaccine trial from Johnson & Johnson. For information on participating go to HenryFord.com/JandJvaccine.