Our view: Extra vaccine reviews could be counterproductive
During the campaign, President Donald Trump pushed inappropriately to get a coronavirus vaccine approved before the election so he could claim credit.
The Food and Drug Administration, the drug companies developing these vaccines and other health care authorities resisted, saying that time was needed to test vaccines to ensure that they were effective and safe.
Their courage has apparently not been enough to convince some Americans that corners weren’t cut in the rapid development of vaccines — three of which have already shown extraordinary promise. One or more could be approved for emergency use next month.
In a bid to alleviate this public skepticism, the National Medical Association (an African American doctors’ association) and seven states (California, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Connecticut, West Virginia and Washington) have announced plans to conduct their own reviews of clinical data before endorsing the widespread dissemination of the vaccines.
This extra layer of review is more likely to add to concern than to allay it.
It is not hard to see what the states are getting at. In the seven that are planning their own reviews, most of which have voted Democratic in recent elections, much of the public is more likely to trust their state government than the Trump administration. And the NMA decision reflects the mistrust that federal health agencies earned in Black communities from unethical behavior of years past, most notoriously a study of syphilis in Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama.
But the best way to alleviate the public’s wariness is not to raise a new level of concern. States do not insist on their own review of other vaccines. The coronavirus vaccines have the same level of blessing from trusted health care authorities as prior ones. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has positive things to say about the products soon to come onto the market and the process by which they are getting there.
In a meeting last week with the USA TODAY Editorial Board, Fauci said the states’ additional reviews “may have the unintended consequence of creating a layer of doubt about the ultimate decision and recommendation that a vaccine is safe and effective.” He detailed a non-political federal review process led by career officials and scientists.
The review by an African American doctors’ group might make more sense, given the sensitivity of the topic. But the vaccines, if found to be safe and effective, need champions in the Black community, rather than more skeptics. In recent years only about 39% of Blacks received flu vaccines, compared with about 49% of whites.
With the COVID clinical trials, the vaccine companies and public health officials made a big push to recruit a diverse pool. This was both to begin the process of outreach and make sure that certain racial groups did not react to the vaccine differently.
They got more minority participation than previous studies, but less than ideal levels. Nothing in the trial data, however, suggests that the vaccines are less effective or safe among any subgroup. Rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines is a great success story so far. States battered by the virus should be trumpeting this accomplishment, not sowing further doubt.