Rushing a vaccine for sake of Trump
By Lethbridge Herald Opinon on September 12, 2020.
Nine of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have just promised not to apply for regulatory approval for any new Covid-19 vaccine before it has gone through all three phases of clinical study. Why would they do such a thing?
You’d be surprised if brain surgeons got together and promised not to operate while drunk, or if the bus drivers’ union publicly pledged that its members will not drive recklessly. They don’t do that because operating sober and driving carefully are just part of the job. So is ensuring that new vaccines are safe and effective.
Yet nine major players in the international pharmaceutics market – AstraZeneca (U.K.-Sweden), BioNTech (Germany), GlaxoSmithKline (U.K.), Johnson & Johnson (U.S.), Merck (Germany), Moderna (U.S.), Novavax (U.S.), Pfizer (U.S.) and Sanofi (France) – all felt obliged to reassure the public that they won’t cheat. What’s up?
Obviously, it’s the perception that other players in the same market may indeed be cutting corners.
We’re not talking here about Russia and China, both of which have begun inoculating some key workers with vaccines that are still listed by the WHO as being in clinical trials. No surprise here: everybody knows that those regimes break the rules whenever they feel like it.
Usually the Trump administration’s actions are viewed with weary resignation by the rest of the world, but it would still be a very big deal if the United States started distributing a vaccine that had not been properly tested. Yet the signs are that that’s just what is going to happen.
Last month at the Republican national convention Donald Trump told the delegates and the country: “We are developing life-saving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner.”
On Sept. 4, the U.S. government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told American health officials that “limited Covid-19 vaccine doses may be available by early November 2020.”
More specifically, the CDC urged state authorities to consider “waiving requirements” and grant permits to McKesson Corporation so they can start distributing a vaccine by Nov. 1.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. The presidential election is on Nov. 3, two days later: that’s long enough for the glad news to get around and floating voters to be swayed in favour of Trump, but too short for any defects in the rushed vaccine to come to light.
Donald Trump is going to liberate Americans from the curse of Covid in a little less than two months. If the vaccine’s miraculous properties subsequently fade, even it turns out to kill large numbers of people, that won’t matter. The votes will have been counted, and Trump will be back in office for another four years. That, at least, is the scenario that is currently envisaged by the people around Trump.
It is a plausible one, especially if the race has tightened by then. Just 100,000 votes in three states, mostly from people who had previously voted Democratic, put Trump in the White House in 2016. A miracle vaccine could certainly swing that many votes again.
The nine pharmaceutical majors who felt the need to issue a “historic pledge” to uphold scientific and ethical standards were doubtless driven by this scenario. Even if there really has been an American breakthrough, they would still have to cope with the public’s suspicion that Trump is cheating – and the mistrust that will also attach to any other early vaccines.
It is possible that the vaccine or vaccines that Trump is about to unleash on the American public really do work and are safe. It would be a historic first in the development of vaccines – having a Covid vaccine ready for general use by next June or July would normally be seen as a remarkable achievement – but miracles do happen.
The problem is that they don’t happen often, and if the full testing regime is not followed, you don’t know if this is one of those times.
It’s only because the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine was going through the full third phase of tests, involving tens of thousands of individuals and many months of testing, that they spotted a bad reaction requiring hospitalization on Wednesday and paused the tests. The American miracle vaccine will only start third-stage tests at the same time that it is made generally available.
Pauses like AstraZeneca/Oxford University’s happen often in the development of a vaccine, and the pause will probably only be temporary. But even a very low-frequency bad reaction can be a mass killer when tens of millions of people are being vaccinated, and these are not desperately sick people willing to risk anything for a cure. They are people in good health, and you mustn’t kill them.
19-18
Who wrote this tripe. Here is a thought
https://youtu.be/EYhguQeX2xQ
that is exactly my question after reading your entry.
Talk can be high and low re: Trump and COVID, but it appears that what surrounds it, for him, will give Biden and the Democrats a win in November. Chances are high that there will not, be a vaccine for COVID by the end of this year.
Trump does it right…. He has a positive attitude! The author of this article clearly is a Democratic supporter twisting and massaging the topic until Trump is the cause of this evil pandemic!
Trump calls it right exactly what it is.. “Chinese Flu”!
Abortion kills American babies; democrats pass laws killing the infant right up to the birth, ninth month! Trump is for LIFE! Funny how all the people willing to kill infants have already been born!? Abortion kill the black infants in an unproportional number; What happed to “Black Lives Matter”?
He has made NATO members pay their fair share!
Stopped China stealing intellectual property!
Increased monies for the run down armed forces!
Improve the NAFTA agreement! Many American companies now moving back to the US!
Stopped the thousands of illegal immigrants from storming the southern boarder!
Drain the swamp… YES! Biden bragged how he stopped the Ukraine from investigation of his son Hunter by withholding money to the country! Socialisms is the first step towards Communism it keeps those in power by holding back suppressing the peoples! There is no such a thing as a free lunch!
Trump is making America great again.. Trudeau is another Biden with his socialist’s agenda!
what a piece of work – if this is what conservative and the right are about, it is a lot worse than i ever imagined.
biff… So you post accusation? What part of what Trump has done is not correct?!
Clearly Trump is against the killing the infant Americans he is against the killing of full term; nine month in the womb babies! What?! You think it is a correct and right to kill babies!?
Question: (answer honestly) Does Satan hate man?! Y or N
If “YES” then would not Satan have his hand in the Abortion industry?! If YES would Satan be involved in the Democratic Party and passing laws condoning and legalizing’s abortions!?
biff I expect more insult and accusation to come from you because nature and the natural law screams; Abortion is an evil! All you have is insult and accusation!
Again I point out… Abortion kill far more black infants in an un-proportional number; What happed to “Black Lives Matter”?
1 Timothy 2:15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
john 3:17 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” .
mark 2:22 “And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.”
meanwhile, i am certain you and ilk are busy daily devoting your time to all the unwanted, uncared for, neglected, abused babies. ptl for your heartfelt work. no fetus shall be wasted, nor sperm.
Who wrote this article? No name attached thus it is “FALSE NEWS“! Accusation by the far left!
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False News spread by our city newspaper! Can we trust anything they print?!
Paranoid, deluded garbage from a wacked-out anti abortion nutter.
The truth is that, when a vaccine is developed, and approved by the U.S., Britain, Germany, Australia, Japan, and others, Canada will still delay the release until it is tested and approved here. That may take an additional Year. And it’s all about justifying jobs.