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<\/div>Each of the different pharmaceutical companies working toward a COVID-19 vaccine has a slightly different definition for success.<\/p>
The differences are small, Wired <\/a><\/em>reports<\/a>, and the FDA will also have controls in place to make sure it doesn’t approve a vaccine that doesn’t actually work. But the discrepancy risks introducing new confusion and doubts over what it actually means to have a successful vaccine<\/a> — and whether the first one<\/a> to be deemed a “success” is actually the one that’ll help the most people.<\/p> A robust phase III clinical trial, the final stage of testing before the FDA can approve a new pharmaceutical, takes tens of thousands of participants. But the way the statistics work out, Wired<\/em> reports, Pfizer could declare its trial a success even if six of its participants take the vaccine and still catch COVID-19.<\/p> That’s not a warning sign that the vaccine doesn’t<\/em> work, per se, but rather suggests that it’s possible for a pharmaceutical company to declare victory without enough evidence<\/a> to say the vaccine does<\/em> work.<\/p> “What you’d like, in this very small number of events, going to the planetary population, is to have the most confidence you possibly can,” Eric Topol, a molecular medicine expert at the Scripps Research Institute who’s been serving as a watchdog for ongoing vaccine trials, told Wired<\/em>. “That would be suppressing the worst events, sickness that requires a hospitalization and anything worse than that.”<\/p> “What if those 26 events are headaches and sore throats? Would that give you great confidence we have an effective vaccine? It sure wouldn’t give me confidence,” Topol added.<\/p> Thankfully, nine drugmakers pledged<\/a> to not push their vaccines until they’ve completed a robust clinical trial despite President Trump’s push to grant them an emergency authorization before tests are complete<\/a>.<\/p> The post Pharma Companies Never Agreed What Makes a “Successful” COVID-19 Vaccine Trial<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p> See the original post: Each of the different pharmaceutical companies working toward a COVID-19 vaccine has a slightly different definition for success. Continue reading
Pharma Companies Never Agreed What Makes a “Successful” COVID-19 Vaccine Trial<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"