Vaccine researcher and scholar Michael S. Kinch expresses worry about a premature vaccine at STAT:
Hey, Food and Drug Administration: Don’t be rash! Premature approval of a sub-standard Covid-19 vaccine could have dire implications, and not just for this pandemic. It could harm public health for years, if not generations, to come.
Unfortunately, elements now in place make such a disastrous outcome not only possible but in fact quite likely. Specifically, the FDA and its staff of chronically overworked and underappreciated regulators will face enormous public and political pressure to approve a vaccine. Whether or not one worries about an “October surprise†aimed at the upcoming election, regulators will be pressed hard. Some will stand firm. Some may resign in protest. But others could break and allow a bad vaccine to be released.
What makes a “bad vaccine� Insufficient protection against the disease it is designed for, unwanted side effects, or some combination of the two. If an approved Covid-19 vaccine turns out to be ineffective, this could unintentionally promote wider spread of the disease by individuals who presume they were protected from it. Likewise, a negative experience with one vaccine might discourage the use of other vaccines that are far more safe and effective, whether they are for Covid-19 or other vaccine-preventable diseases.
Some things take time. Under normal circumstances, ensuring that a vaccine’s effects are safe and durable requires years of study and monitoring. And there is some evidence that natural immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection could be transient, making sustained investigation all the more necessary. A merely short-term effect could encourage vaccinated individuals to resume risky behaviors, which would all but guarantee that the epidemic endures. And if unintended side effects turn out to include, for instance, chronic inflammatory or autoimmune disease, a bad vaccine could impart lifelong damage.
But wait, there’s worse! A bad Covid-19 vaccine could further undermine confidence in the many safe, reliable vaccines already in our public health arsenal. Vaccine skepticism and anti-science bias, propagated by B-list celebrities and Russian troll farms, have been gaining strength all year. Combined with disappointing Covid-19 outcomes, such malign forces could facilitate the reemergence of once-vanquished foes — polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus — that once killed multitudes of children each year.
These are enormous risks. Placing all of our bets on a small set of untried vaccine technologies would be gobsmackingly foolish. Yet this is exactly what we are now doing. Most of the high-profile names capturing headlines are pursuing comparatively minor variations on a theme of genetic vaccines (those delivered via DNA or RNA). If one approach happens to work, the odds are higher the others will work as well. Disappointing results from one candidate, though, might presage failure across the board.
Read the whole thing. The pressures—political, economic, and social—to produce a vaccine quickly will be enormous and will increase over the coming months.
4 observations :
I imagine public health officials will have an interesting time convincing 100% of the population to be vaccinated — after their uneven performance in the past few months.
An induced immunity that is short term is still a huge benefit. The flu shot lasts one flu season; only 50% effective; and 50% uptake rate; yet still saves > 10000 lives a year.
Western countries relying only on new vaccination platforms is a valid criticism — putting all the eggs in one basket. The Chinese are using the age old adenovirus method.
I learned at the zoo yesterday that cats can catch the coronavirus…. has anyone thought about how to vaccinate the millions domestic and wild cat and other felines?
We can’t even get people to vaccinate against measles or seasonal flu and some countries had difficulty convincing their people to vaccinate against smallpox. Polio might be eliminated but some countries can’t convince their people to be immunized against it. I suspect they’ll have a similar problem with SARS-CoV-2 for similar reasons.
To the best of my knowledge in cats SARS-CoV-2 is mild and non-life threatening. I have heard of no instances of people contracting the virus from their cats.
It seems to me that a vaccine of unknown or unpredictable duration would actually be worse than no vaccine at all.
If it is only 50% effective then you have good chance of not having big outbreaks since R would likely be less than 1. Especially if there is any seasonality would help a lot.
I had thought that Western countries were not relying solely on new methods but were using many methods.
Steve
Here is the list of vaccines in development listed by WHO… it looks comprehensive from my eye.
https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
I recalled wrongly from memory — it is “inactivated” not “adenovirus” that the Chinese are trying but not Western countries.
Personally, it is a senseless oversight — inactivated virus vaccines work for other viruses — like polio, Hep A, whooping cough…
To the best of my knowledge in cats SARS-CoV-2 is mild and non-life threatening. I have heard of no instances of people contracting the virus from their cats.
That’s correct, there have been no such cases of cat to human transmission. The only cases so far confirmed of any “domestic†animal to human transmission involved mink in the Netherlands. That species seems to be quite susceptible and there was enough concern over a potential viral reservoir that they are culling all the mink.