President Trump is coming under increasing fire for his push to have a coronavirus vaccine available as soon as the November election. Indeed, it appears to be undermining public confidence in the process, raising the fear that it will reduce the number of people willing to be vaccinated.
“Too much of the evidence points to the Trump administration pressuring the [Food and Drug Administration] to approve a vaccine by Election Day to boost the president’s reelection campaign,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday. “This raises serious safety concerns about politics, not science and public health, driving the decision-making process.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified health officials in 50 states Wednesday to prepare to distribute a vaccine for COVID-19 in late October or early November, leading some Democrats to speculate that the agency is working according to Trump’s political timeline.
I’m a big fan of vaccines but DAMN I’m skeptical of one that‘s supposed to have been developed, tested, produced, and distributed in 6 months — right in time for the re-election of our very own dictator.
— Katie Hill (@KatieHill4CA) September 2, 2020
On Sunday, the Financial Times published an interview with FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn in which Hahn suggested he was considering issuing emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine before phase three trials were complete.
A survey from STAT and the Harris Poll from late August found that 78% of people were concerned that politics, rather than science, was driving the vaccine approval process. The concern was bipartisan, with 82% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans agreeing. Nearly 83% worried about the safety of an accelerated vaccine, but 68% said they were confident the FDA would only approve a safe vaccine.
A sufficient number of people, by some estimates 60%, will need to be vaccinated to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
In other words, the administration could undermine the broader goal of getting much of the country vaccinated if it succeeds in its aims to accelerate the process of discovering and producing a vaccine. Through “Operation Warp Speed,” it seeks to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective vaccine by January.
Even prior to the pandemic, distrust of vaccines has grown in recent years.
“There has been an increase in vaccine hesitancy — people that either delay or refuse vaccines. This has led to a negative effect on vaccine coverage, which is paramount for the control of vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Rupali Limaye, a behavioral scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Hesitancy is driven by mistrust of the healthcare system … As a result, trust is paramount for vaccine acceptance.”
By one estimate, 100,000 children under 2 years of age in the United States have not been vaccinated. That distrust could grow if a COVID-19 vaccine is rushed hastily toward approval.
“If the administration pushes a vaccine through with incomplete safety data, this will inevitably increase distrust,” Limaye added. “I do think fewer people will get vaccinated, as more individuals will have safety concerns.”
Not everyone thinks speeding up a vaccine for the election is a bad idea.
“The government has been behind on the virus from the beginning, too slow to act, with deadly consequences. If it takes an election to speed up the response, I will take it gratefully,” said Alex Tabarrok, an economist at George Mason University who has written extensively about the economics of vaccines. “Should everyone be vaccinated before phase three trials are complete? Of course not. But for high-risk workers, taking an early vaccine is a very reasonable risk and ought to be an option.”
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, disagreed.
“Is it possible that because people don’t trust Donald Trump on the science, they won’t trust him on this vaccine no matter how good it is? Yes, that’s possible,” Offit said. “Do I think now that people trust the Trump administration to give them good science information? No, I don’t.”
