Lots of noise about the safety + efficacy + trust of an expedited #vaccine this Fall. As a recent @RWJF Health Policy Fellow in the @USSenate, I had the opportunity to work on the SAVE Act. Some thoughts:
(1/10)

The Safe Authorization of Vaccines during Emergencies (SAVE) Act seeks to ensure that expedited delivery of a #vaccine (which we ALL want) is grounded in data & science. We cannot afford a bad vaccine—or further loss of public trust in a good vaccine—because of politics.
(2/10)

In drafting the bill, the primary goal was to ensure that officials within the Trump Administration could not circumvent the normal licensure process in which independent panels of experts vet and validate vaccine manufacturers data on the vaccine product.
(3/10)

Our concern was well-founded: expedited authorization of hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma have proven disastrous and eroded public trust at a time when we will need a vast majority of Americans to help end the #COVIDー19 pandemic.
(4/10)

Those drugs were expedited via the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) provision, & many discussions have mentioned EUA for a potential #vaccine. Without appropriate measures in place to ensure authorization is not influenced by political pressure, this is simply a bad idea.
(5/10)

Notably, the EUA has *never* been used for a brand new #vaccine, in part because the threshold for vaccines is much higher than that of therapeutic drugs.
(6/10)

Think of it this way: the #COVIDー19 #vaccine will be used in millions of otherwise healthy people. Even rare side effects could affect many more people than a drug that treats a specific illness.
(7/10)

TLDR: We do NOT want an expedited vaccine making healthy people sick.
(8/10)

I am a physician, but it doesn’t take a medical degree to understand the stakes here. We need Congress to pass the SAVE Act to protect all Americans AND end the #pandemic. (9/10)

. @SenatorHassan (D-NH), for whom I worked, introduced the bill on August 4th with Republican co-sponsors, @SenatorBraun (R-IN) and Sen. @lisamurkowski (R-AK).

Here’s Sen. Hassan discussing the importance of this bill: https://twitter.com/SenatorHassan/status/1303771270425776129?s=20 (10/10)