Sensationalized reporting of scientific findings in the midst of a pandemic can fool the public into thinking that a coronavirus treatment or vaccine is just around the corner.
“Without good data with potentially conflicted messengers at all levels, is it any wonder that we have the general public grasping at straws and not believing anything, not believing anyone?” said Gary Schwitzer, a health journalist and a public health professor at the University of Minnesota.
Press releases and sound bites from drug manufacturers and government health experts often stress the successes of preliminary phases in clinical trials and omit details that qualify early successes, such as limited sample sizes or possible health risks.
Early trials for potential coronavirus treatments or vaccines that show hints of potential advance to second and third phases of trials, Schwitzer said, without first establishing whether the candidates are safe.
“We don’t get to the point in explaining [safety], and it’s vital to explain,” Schwitzer told the Washington Examiner. “We can’t even say anything with any certainty about safety after 45 people, which is why we go on to phase two and phase three. We often don’t learn what we really need to learn until after the post-market approval phase four studies.”
Drug manufacturers that highlight the probable benefits of a treatment in press releases gloss over potential side effects or health risks to people with underlying health conditions, experts say. Still, government health officials, who are under extreme pressure to deliver a remedy for the pandemic, then pick up and publicize the findings without including the fine print.
“At every level, from government agencies to academic researchers and their PR people, they lose sight of those of us at the bottom of the food chain who don’t even know that we’re being spun with news and marketing at all levels, of pollution of the message before it reaches us,” Schwitzer said.
The speed at which early findings are disseminated is just as problematic, experts say. Announcements from pharmaceutical companies about preliminary findings in phase one trials do not always disclose the potential risks of the product, partly because they have not conducted enough research to recognize the health risks.
“You could say, ‘I want to get this out as fast as possible so more people could benefit.’ I think the risk is even higher because you get one paper out more quickly into the public domain. It hasn’t been reviewed carefully or at all,” said Richard Saitz, chairman of the department of community health sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health.
He added, “Then, you could say, ‘Well, yeah, everybody could look at it and make their own determination,’ but really, that’s not right. To really understand the impact of one clinical trial, it really does take experts.”
Qualifying successes with potential shortcomings of early phase trials is less appealing to an already nervous public during a global pandemic. Yet public health officials in the Trump administration are under increasing pressure to deliver a therapy or a vaccine for COVID-19.
Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease expert and the most authoritative voice in public health right now, announced in April that early findings that point to the efficacy of the drug remdesivir are “quite good news” but added that results are inconclusive. That same month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield was quoted as saying that having both the coronavirus and the flu in the fall would be “more difficult.” Trump called the statement “fake news” and asked Redfield to clarify his statement during a White House press briefing. Redfield said that he was quoted accurately but that, rather than playing up the danger of a resurgence of the coronavirus, he was trying to impress on the public the need for getting flu shots.
“Even if you put your pants on in the morning determined to do your best and to be the most effective communicator you can, you still can’t help but feel that pressure, that hot breath breathing down your neck saying, ‘You better put this in the most positive light, or you’re out of here,’” Schwitzer said.
It’s important to remind people, Schwitzer said, that early studies are flawed and inconclusive. Reporting from manufacturers and government officials often fails to mention that the therapy may show promise but that the sample size was very small or that people with comorbidities who are seriously sick may not benefit from the treatment.
“[What] we know is that the vaccine or treatment is safe in 45 people, which is not going to be the 200 million people who are going to get it here in the U.S., so we don’t know anything about efficacy,” Schwitzer said. “Those are the quotes that should come out in order for the news to be truly trustworthy. And I don’t think we’re there.”
Currently, over 55 vaccine candidates are in development, as well as 115 treatment candidates. The most promising treatment at the moment is Gilead Science’s remdesivir, which was the first drug to get emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for use against COVID-19. Preliminary data from trials signaled that the drug can reduce the length of hospital stays of people with severe cases of the coronavirus from 15 to 11 days but did not conclude that the drug could kill the virus.
