The country’s top career official in charge of approving a COVID-19 vaccine said that he would resign from his position if he felt that the approval process had been politically compromised, Reuters reported on Thursday.
The fact that Marks feels he needs to announce this is telling.
And that is as good a reason as a principled technocrat can have.
Personally I do not anticipate getting vaccinated until late next year at the earliest because: a) it won’t be available for folks like me (aka lower priority) for some time and b) the absence of longitudinal data on efficacy makes waiting and social distancing a reasonable alternative until longer term results are available.
I won’t be taking any warp(ed) Trump vaccine, period. I’ll wait for a “fact over fiction” version from an honest administration. Oh, and I’ll vote to make that honest administration happen.
Clorox and Lysol have been approved for sale for decades. What’s the big deal?
I will say it again. There is no fucking way that I want a vaccine out of this administration. Even if there is a safe, effective vaccine that is somehow ready to go by election day.
There are just too many ways to screw this up. And Trump and company will find them all.
Wet dreams are now on the endangered species list.
And Emperor Zero diddles on…
Hepburn replied that he was “all in favor of continuing the dialogue. Just let me know.”
This sounds like lip service. It is not all reassuring.
So, when in October are they announcing they’ve got a miracle vaccine ready to go…
At first I was heartened…but with further reading, this guy just sounds like a hack who is laying more smokescreen for the eventual too-fast release.
And I just loved the paragraph below about “overwhelming the airwaves” by NOVEMBER. Nothing suspicious or political about that.
Trump said on Aug. 6 that he wanted a vaccine to be approved “right around” Election Day, while Operation Warp Speed officials have said that they’re planning to “overwhelm” the airwaves with vaccine messaging by November.
I hope Dr. Marks has that letter ready; he’s going to be sending it soon.
I don’t recall hearing this expressed before—“If I’m pressured to distribute an unsafe or ineffective vaccine, I’ll quit.” At least I don’t remember hearing about it in the news.
The few, the brave.
Operation Warp Speed is nothing more than an arm of Trump’s reelection campaign. Whatever they say, believe the opposite.
Since the failure to control the pandemic virtually guarantees that many participants will be infected quickly
Not really. I live in the 'rona hotspot of Dallas County, Texas, pop. about 2.68 million people. At the height of our ongoing (but fortunately declining) outbreak last month, we were seeing about 1,300 new cases (confirmed, that is) each day for a couple of weeks. That works out to a 0.05% chance of any individual being infected in the wild each day. Extrapolate that to two weeks, and you’re looking at a 0.7% chance of that person getting infected out in the wild. If your vaccine trial included 10,000 people in Dallas County, and managed to time it out so that it took place at the two-week height of our epidemic, you would expect to see only 36 cases among your participants who would have picked up a case without the vaccine. The numbers are just too small.
ETA: Sorry, I should have factored in unconfirmed transmission, which would presumably be accounted for by routine testing of the trial participants. If you assume actual transmission is 2x the confirmed cases, you would expect to see 72 cases of the 'rona during the 2-week height of our outbreak. If you assume actual transmission is 10x the confirmed cases (way higher than most guesstimates), you’re at about 360 expected cases. And, of course, half of your trial is placebos. The numbers are still just way too small.
Admirable, I guess, except no one in the administration will give a damn and it will barely make the news. Will things ever be normal again? I’m having a bleak day…
No. Me either.
Whatever the motives, it’s not a bad plan so long as they don’t end up with a bad vaccine.
I think Dr. Marks is projecting that, if he doesn’t resign, we can be reasonably assured that an approved vaccine is the best they can do given the time constraints and limits on longitudinal testing.
And if he does resign, maybe skip the line for the shots.
“If”? Write that resignation notice now, mi amigo. Trust me.