Thread by @jbkrell

As the world reels this morning from the @AstraZeneca news, remember that this problem + the general difficulty of comparing different COVID-19 vaccines is due to a decision by the @NIH to not run head to head trials because pharma *didn't want them to*. 🧵

The problem is that each COVID-19 vaccine was evaluated in its own clinical trial(s), each with a different statistical design, end point definition, recruitment strategy etc. A better way would have been to compare each vaccine against each other in a "platform clinical trial".

This would of made direct comparison between each vaccine candidate far easier, because they would have been evaluated on a common trial design and critically, would have generated important info to guide policy makers on selecting candidates for further manufacturing scale up

This is what NIH originally proposed. But as @carlzimmer reported back in Oct., pharma rejected this idea precisely because it would *work*. That is, it would show which vaccines are better than their competitors. nytimes.com/2020/10/12/hea…

@NIH surrendered to pharma's demand here, which had no public interest justification. The public had already agreed to purchase huge numbers of vaccine doses (regardless of whether they worked), and with the exception of Pfizer, paid for the trials, the manufacturing scale up etc

And this shows just how problematic @NIH's relationship with industry is. Even when the public pours $11.5 billion into the development of these vaccines, NIH still will prioritize pharma's interest over the publics.

It is why the work of people like @cmorten2, @reshmagar @zainrizvi, @Public_Citizen, @gregggonsalves, @akapczynski is so important on focusing on research integrity and transparency.

One last thing, don't use this thread as way to justify #antivax bullshit. The trials that were done perfectly evaluated safety, and these vaccines are, without a doubt, very safe. I would take any of the EUA'd vaccines, and in fact, just completed my Pfizer course.