Not trusting the FDA, Black doctors' group creates panel to vet Covid-19 vaccines
As trust in federal health agencies has withered over the last few months, a group of Black physicians has been working on an antidote: creating their own expert task force to independently vet regulators’ decisions about Covid-19 drugs and vaccines as well as government recommendations for curbing the pandemic.
Organized by the National Medical Association — founded in 1895 as an answer to racist professional societies excluding Black doctors — the committee is meant to safeguard against any unscientific guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
“It’s necessary to provide a trusted messenger of vetted information to the African American community,” said Leon McDougle, a family physician and president of the NMA. “There is a concern that some of the recent decisions by the Food and Drug Administration have been unduly influenced by politicians.”
Just one of the examples he gave was the agency’s go-ahead to use hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19 even though there was no reliable evidence that it worked, and some indication that it could cause heart damage. The FDA later back-tracked and revoked the authorization.
McDougle frames the new task force as a way to address the suspicion that has sprouted up around Covid-19 vaccines. Some worry that, in being developed at “warp speed,” the shots might not be safe or properly tested before they’re approved, and the anxiety is only heightened for those who’ve been alienated by the medical system. That’s part of the reason that certain patients of color are especially wary of taking part in the clinical trials — and those concerns may well persist even if adequate studies are done and a vaccine hits the market.
“I think this will help to increase uptake in the African American community, if members of our task force give it the green light,” McDougle said. But he emphasized that their stamp of approval would come only if data show that the vaccine is, in fact, effective and safe.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/21/black-doctors-group-creates-panel-to-vet-covid19-vaccines/
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