Hyped COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Have a Glaring Race Problem
“This is an ongoing issue plaguing society as well as the clinical and scientific community,” one expert said of the lily-white samples in some of the top vaccine trials.
Lubo Ivanko/Getty
In recent weeks, major studies have offered promising news on the development of two leading novel coronavirus vaccine candidates. At least, they were promising for some Americans.
The vaccines—from U.S. biotech company Moderna and a consortium of Oxford University and British-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca—appeared to be safe. They also seemed to produce an immune response in separate test groups together numbering more than a thousand people. But there was a problem with the studies, according to experts on the intersection of immunology and race: The test groups in both the Moderna and the Oxford-AstraZeneca trials were overwhelmingly white. This despite data indicating COVID-19 disproportionately affects people of color.
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