In the News
In the News
Among the reasons for vaccine hesitancy, lack of full FDA approval ranks high. Susan Ellenberg, PhD, explains that the FDA required six months of safety data to consider full approval — meaning that the process requires a longer follow-up, but not necessarily more rigorous review.
Susan Ellenberg, PhD, said she does not believe that the FDA will remove the vaccines’ Emergency Use Authorization before regular approval is granted. Regarding objections to vaccine mandates, she added, “There are lots of restrictions in order to protect public health.”
Michael Z. Levy, PhD, warned that the looming return of evictions comes at a time when COVID-19 vaccination rates in the U.S. have plateaued and while the highly transmissible Delta variant is surging. His research shows that even a small uptick in evictions in a single U.S. city could lead to thousands of excess COVID-19 cases.
FDA regulators considering full approval for Covid-19 vaccines “feel the intense external pressure to complete the full approval, and have to balance that against the concern they always have about new products, about missing something,” commented Susan Ellenberg, PhD.
Beyond correlating race with health outcomes, the standard for scientists should be to pinpoint what drives health disparities — income, education, neighborhood environmental exposure — comments Nwamaka Eneanya, MD, MPH, a leader in the drive to remove race as a variable in calculating kidney function.
A good clinician consultant should be able to explain why they arrived at a particular recommendation, and explainable artificial intelligence should also be possible, writes Jason Moore, PhD — by keeping track of the algorithm as it iterates and presenting the path it took.
Data from the CDC’s VAERS system can be misleading for the general public, commented Jeffrey Morris, PhD: “If you want to establish causation in terms of efficacy or safety, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trials are the cleanest, strongest way to do that.”
M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, commented on evidence-based tips to help teens reduce distraction when driving.
The Delta variant of COVID-19 has caused an outbreak of coronavirus cases in the United States, raising questions about the efficacy of vaccines. But scientists such as Ricardo Castillo-Neyra, PhD, DVM, MSPH, say they are safe, they work, and, for now, it is better not to mix them.
Jeffrey Morris, PhD, unpacks just how inaccurate data misled the public: A widely shared paper—later retracted—incorrectly claimed that the Covid-19 vaccines produced almost as many deaths as lived saved.
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