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On AZ/Oxford vaccine: Ok the media love a scandal, you know that. @WIRED have one thing right: you cannot meta-analyse studies that do not have common design aspects. On the adverse events, it appears that the half dose reduced these, leading to queries why it happened, ...
and the discovery of the half dose. These things (efficacy, adverse events, etc.) are sigmoid on log concentration relationships. Without the NOAEL etc. PK metrics it’s hard to say what is happening but from a virological point of view half a dose at E10 viruses (or E6)...
...hardly makes a difference in infectivity or indeed other matters. The animal work should have generated therapeutic index data which define the broad range of safe dosing in case someone cocks up the dosing. What will end up mattering in the end is the threshold set by...
the regulators for approval: 50%. Both in Brazil and the U.K. the threshold was exceeded. Without major adverse events, pooling, or meta-analysis, this meets the approval criteria. It will get approved and, to placate the media, AZ/Oxford will have to do more studies. And that...
is absolutely fine and absolutely normal. Post approval studies are common. This vaccine has a mass distribution potential that is superior to the current competition storage needs. Even if it protects the general public from transmission/disease (not studied by the others)...
...but not the elderly, well guess what; those who care for their elderly will jab themselves to protect the elderly. If disease is less debilitating in the elderly (no ICU) THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH. So may all the perfectionists out there remember that at some point they have...
...cocked up somewhere, at some point, on something pretty important too; they should ask themselves if they owned up to it or not. Tone it down ladies and gents and don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Not everyone can queue outside the Apple store to buy the latest...
...gadget and, in this case, the situation is the same: not everyone will be able to get hold of the mRNA vaccines. But EVERYONE will be able to access the AZ/Oxford one because @MenePangalos has pledged non profit use. Imagine you could buy a smartphone that can do 60-90%...
...of what the latest top end smartphone can (and you’ve had to be off work for near a year now). You’d love the new toy, but you’d make the most of the one that’s cheaper and good enough for your crisis now you’re out of money and with no means of communication. Oh, and any...
new tech adopters always face a risk of their device bricking/crashing because of some issue or another. You can’t patch the software with vaccines- but you can boost later on. Would I take the Oxford/AZ vaccine and give it to my 3yo? Yes, unequivocally. Because like masks, I...
care about public health and I give something away to allow for others to flourish too. Don’t tread on me implies that I won’t tread on you either- intentionally, accidentally, and certainly not negligently. Roll up your sleeves folks. And for transparency purposes:
I have consulted to AstraZeneca in 2017 on inhaled oligonucleotide therapeutics for lung and liver diseases; I have no current consultancies, sponsorships or studentships with the company. I hold no stock on any pharma or biotech so there is no monetary or otherwise conflict...
of interest to declare. I would urge journalists to ask questions to this end from their interviewees/contributors (not implying anything through this statement) to assess their sources. I also have old Pfizer friends who work at AZ that know full well I’d call crap for what...
it is, and would push back on unsubstantiated science or subterfuge of any kind if I saw it. Even to the C class of the corp, peers in the Ivy League, or indeed the execs of a University in my own institution. Now can we all get on with it and wait for the Lancet paper.
