No vaccine has yet been proved safe and effective, some trials have been paused, and candidates still may fail. Operation Warp Speed is a federal initiative, but the concept is grounded in years of global work on emerging pathogens. The first vaccine will create a cascade of follow-on effects, raising questions about how to test the next generation of vaccines. If an effective vaccine becomes available in the next few months, it may no longer be ethical to test other vaccines against placebos, for example. Even a very large vaccine trial cannot rule out very rare adverse events, and a careful watch will have to be kept for such events after any vaccine is approved, according to strict regulatory requirements that will be debated at Thursday’s meeting.

Source: Washington Post October 21, 2020 13:09 UTC