Is A Vaccine Even Going to be Safe?
- fionacsweet
- Sep 24, 2020
- 2 min read
Our best bet at getting out of this nightmare and restoring normalcy is a vaccine.
Trump is somehow ruining that option too by causing many to lose trust in the FDA.
Let me give you a summary.
The FDA is considering new COVID-19 vaccine guidelines, which would put a timeline of a useful vaccine much farther past Election Day. This would obviously dash Trump's hopes at a pre-election vaccine, which he believes would up his chances of reelection. He says that these he must approve these new guidelines, and that the White House "may or may not approve it" because it "sounds like a political move." (Yes, because Trump would never partake in any inappropriate political moves.)
The FDA has publicly stated that they would not give out a vaccine that they would not feel comfortable giving to their own families, and that they will not permit any pressure from anyone to change that. However, the National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins has conceded that he isn't quite sure if the FDA or the White House has the final say.
2 former FDA commissioners have previously told CNN that while it is unlikely, it is still a possibility that Trump could pressure scientists into offering a vaccine before it's ready.
Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist at Baylor College of Medicine said this: "What I'm concerned about is there could be a gray zone where a vaccine looks partially protective and it goes on the market without a full formal review process."
Our president has gone from no vaccine to very unsafe vaccine very fast. The very concerning problem here is that if a sizable part of our nation loses trust in our vaccines, that can go downhill very fast. I'm not really sure how Trump supporters can agree with this logic because I'm pretty sure that Republicans are more likely to refuse a vaccine than Democrats, according to a poll done by the Kaiser Foundation. (You can check it out below.) If a sizable amount of our population does not take the vaccine (even if it is very effective), we cannot return to normalcy because not enough of our population is safe from the disease. That is not good.
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