Taylor Hatmaker
A COVID-19 vaccine could come within weeks — at least a limited supply to front-line medical workers. Drug companies Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have the leading vaccine candidates. Several others remain in development.
The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for authorizing and approving all vaccines in the USA. Widespread vaccine use once one is given the green light could provide a way to end the coronavirus pandemic. USA TODAY interviewed FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn about how the approval process works, how quickly it could go, and how the agency will encourage Americans to take the vaccine.
What is the ACIP? For a COVID-19 vaccine to get cleared by the FDA, these 15 experts will vouch for its safety
How a COVID-19 vaccine will be authorized
Question: How will a COVID-19 vaccine get clearance for use?
Answer: Companies have the option of applying for either a license (called a Biologics License Application) or an Emergency Use Authorization. It’s their choice.
Q: What is an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)?
A: An Emergency Use Authorization is an authority that Congress gave to FDA after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to allow countermeasures, treatments or vaccines to be available earlier than would normally be done under the approval process.
Q: Has the FDA ever issued an Emergency Use Authorization for a vaccine?
A: Yes, for an anthrax vaccine (in 2005).
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, promises transparency in the vaccine approval process.
How an Emergency Use Authorization differs from FDA approval
Q: What standards must companies meet to get Emergency Use Authorization?
A: The standard that’s used for an EUA is that it must be effective in the treatment or prevention of COVID-19 and that the risk/benefit ratio is in favor of authorization.
For vaccines, that’s especially important because unlike treatments, vaccines are given to people who are otherwise healthy. They don’t have COVID-19, so when we look into the risk/benefit ratio … we have to factor that into its safety and effectiveness. We have to be incredibly thoughtful about this.
How FDA evaluates the safety of a vaccine given emergency authorization
Q: What can you say to reassure people that a vaccine approved under an EUA is just as safe and effective as one approved under a BLA, even though there isn’t as much long-term effectiveness data?
A: The standards we expect in safety and effectiveness in an EUA are very similar to what we expect in a BLA. Our career scientists have been doing this for years; this is their area of expertise. They will be judging the science and medicine.
A subject receives a shot in the first-stage safety trial of a potential vaccine by Moderna for COVID-19 at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle on March 16.
Q: Will COVID-19 vaccines issued under an EUA continue in the licensing process and eventually be fully licensed using a Biologics License Application?
A: Yes. Our expectation is that the sponsors (the vaccine companies) will submit an application, and it’s their call if it’s an EUA or a BLA. Then they would submit, subsequently or in real time, a BLA. We will, of course, prioritize the application for an Emergency Use Authorization, but we will then go through the normal reviews.
site-https://jsfiddle.net/4q09oate/
How the FDA will encourage people to take the vaccine
Q: What more could be done to encourage people to take an authorized vaccine? Is there anything you can do as head of the FDA to encourage people to get vaccinated?
site-https://paiza.io/projects/xsGuH_8OP_K7KKDjXZDBnw
A: I was a doctor before I became FDA commissioner. If you explain something to a patient — if you share that in a transparent way and then you do what you say you’re going to do — that builds trust. We will follow our process, look at the criteria — we’ll be transparent about those.
site-https://ideone.com/3cgki4
Get the Coronavirus Watch newsletter in your inbox.
Stay safe and informed with updates on the spread of the coronavirus
Delivery: Varies
Your Email
Q: Will you get the vaccine yourself? Either in April or May when it may become available to the general public, or do you fit in one of the categories that are likely to have access sooner, such as front-line medical workers?
site-https://martine8jriversmcom.hatenablog.com/entry/2020/12/02/125117
A: I’ve been clear, I would not allow the agency to authorize or approve a vaccine that I wouldn’t want my own family to get. No one at FDA would want that to occur.
When it’s appropriate for me to get the vaccine, from the guidelines’ point of view, I will get that vaccine. I would strongly urge my family to get it. I have 100% confidence in the staff at FDA. If it would enhance confidence in the vaccine, I would get the vaccine as soon as it is authorized.
Maria Harvey and her sister Ashley Makridakis protest mandatory flu vaccinations outside the Massachusetts Statehouse on Aug. 30 in Boston. Public health authorities say flu shots are very important this year to avoid overburdening the health system amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Q: An employer or school cannot require someone to get a vaccine issued under an EUA, right?
site-https://blog.goo.ne.jp/martine/e/0736816b9c11c2f2230c8c406161cef5
A: Institutions may require individuals to take an FDA-approved vaccine or apply for an exception. However, EUA products are still considered investigational.
It’s possible that some employers or schools will have questions or concerns about an investigational product issued an Emergency Use Authorization, which is why we will be as transparent as possible about the data and information we use to make our decision. This should help those organizations determine what is most appropriate for them.
site-http://www.onfeetnation.com/profiles/blogs/6595159:BlogPost:21075024
How long it will take for a vaccine to be authorized
There are several steps to the vaccine authorization process. First, a company must apply to the FDA. Then, the FDA must go through the application and send it to an outside review board called the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC). That committee meets on Dec. 10 and will send the FDA its comments and recommendations. Only then can the FDA make a final decision on a vaccine.
Q: How long should we expect FDA to deliberate after it hears from that committee?
A: We expect it to be days, but it’s very dependent on the complexity of the data and the comments we get back from VRBPAC.
Q: So it could be longer?
A: We cannot prejudge our process; our scientists have to make the decision. We will take the time that’s needed to make the right call on this.
We want to move quickly because this is a national emergency, but we will make sure that our scientists take the time they need to make an appropriate decision. It is our job to get this right and make the correct decision regarding vaccine safety and efficacy.
site-https://wmtools.me/mass-ping?fbclid=IwAR2cj5AX3Bu6qPPyQ7gJFkOv4Gy-P74TfF9RiwKai-HqSitl18LZCyBXxBA
Staff members monitor patients at Stormont Vail Health on Nov. 18 in Topeka, Kan. The hospital has devoted an entire floor to COVID-19 patients.
Q: How much paperwork does an EUA involve? In the old days, there was so much paperwork, it came in on wooden pallets. Can you give us a metric?
A: These applications are very complicated. This is thousands of pages of information that our scientists have to go through. … FDA is one of the few, if not the only, regulatory agencies in the world that looks at the raw data in a clinical trial. We refer to it as the line data. We analyze the data, we have expertise in that, we’ve done that for years. This is why it takes us time because it’s very complicated.
That’s another issue that I believe should provide great comfort to the American people: These scientists will do the number crunching. We have biostatisticians, we have scientists. We don’t just accept the conclusion of our sponsors — we will come to our own conclusion.
Written by
Xiyijey
gvfrbgvft
News
Newsletter
Newspapers
News Articles
Covid 19
More from Xiyijey
gvfrbgvft
2 days ago
Ricky Schroder poses with accused Kenosha shooter after helping fund his $2 million bond
A 17-year-old youth accused of killing two people during a protest in Wisconsin is seen smiling in a new photo with his lawyer and “NYPD Blue” and “Silver Spoons” star Ricky Schroder after posting his $2 million bond and being released from custody.
Kyle Rittenhouse is accused of fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum, 26, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz, 22, with an AR-15 rifle during a demonstration on Aug. 25 to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake. …
Read more · 3 min read
2 days ago
When schools are open amid COVID pandemic, online learners feel shortchanged
It was the second week of the fall semester when Cassandra Wooten realized her teenage daughter was sinking. The high school junior often spent hours a day on her computer for online school, only to tell her mom at day’s end that she wasn’t sure she’d learned anything at all.
Wooten had decided to enroll her daughter in the remote learning plan at Mississippi’s DeSoto County School District last summer, when infection rates were surging and hospitals ran out of ICU beds. …
Read more · 8 min read
2 days ago
COVID-19 means Thanksgiving alone for many Americans
For Jennifer Broderick, the decision to spend Thanksgiving alone was a surprisingly simple one.
Her mother is a cardiology nurse, her sister works at a nursing home and Broderick has been teaching in-person classes as an assistant biology professor at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania. Since all of them interact with people outside of their immediate families each day, exposing them to COVID-19, Broderick said she will stay home.
site-https://medium.com/@ghsadfytasdfts/taylor-hatmaker-3fbd7309439b
She may cook a turkey “alongside” her family via Zoom, or she’s thinking about making an unconventional meal on this unconventional holiday: tacos.
“Because I care about my family and friends, this is a thing I can do to protect them,” said Broderick, 29. “If we could do a good job quarantining now, that could contribute to getting numbers lower so I can at least think about (seeing them during) Christmas.” …
Read more · 6 min read
4 days ago
In response to the moment’: HBO’s ‘Between the World and Me’ reflects summer’s Black Lives Matter protests
What can a Black person expect living in the U.S.?
That’s the central question Ta-Nehisi Coates answers in his book, “Between the World and Me,” published in 2015 — a question spun forward in an HBO film (Saturday, 8 EST/PST), adapted from a stage production of Coates’ work that features Mahershala Ali and Angela Bassett.
The movie, like the book, is structured as an open letter to Coates’ adolescent son Samori about what to expect as a Black person living in the U.S., …
Read more · 4 min read
4 days ago
Rachel Maddow, back on MSNBC, warns of COVID-19 after partner’s illness, thought ‘it might kill her’
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who’s been off the air in quarantine since Nov. 6, returned to her show Thursday, explaining her absence in a sweet tribute to her longtime partner, artist Susan Mikula, and delivered an impassioned warning about the danger of COVID-19.
The cable news host, broadcasting from her home office and explaining her makeup-free appearance with humorous self-effacement, revealed that the “close contact” she had been exposed to, as her quarantine had been explained during her absence, was Mikula, her partner of more than 21 years.
Maddow, 47, named Thursday to the Out100 list of notable LGBTQ+ celebrities, activists and journalists, said she’s tested negative for coronavirus but that Mikula, 62, became seriously ill with the virus after testing positive two weeks ago. …