美國(guó)新冠疫苗想成功,,首先要湊夠100萬(wàn)名志愿者
這個(gè)主意最初是好萊塢大帥哥阿什頓·庫(kù)徹提出的,。庫(kù)徹是好萊塢知名演員和科技公司投資人,,他在與南加州大學(xué)勞倫斯·埃里森變革醫(yī)學(xué)研究所(Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine at USC)的首席執(zhí)行官戴維斯·阿格斯談話時(shí)指出,,美國(guó)的抗疫工作要想取得成功,首先要解決一個(gè)艱巨的挑戰(zhàn)——招募到足夠多的志愿者來(lái)參與新冠疫苗和藥物的試驗(yàn)工作,。庫(kù)徹建議,美國(guó)應(yīng)該開(kāi)展一項(xiàng)宣傳活動(dòng),,讓那些已經(jīng)報(bào)名的志愿者錄制一段視頻,,向大家解釋他們?yōu)槭裁匆鲞@件事,。“他們未經(jīng)過(guò)濾的聲音就是一個(gè)強(qiáng)大的佐證,。”而這就是這次宣傳活動(dòng)需要傳遞的信息,。阿格斯說(shuō):“疫苗無(wú)關(guān)政治,,只關(guān)乎科學(xué),、公民責(zé)任,只關(guān)乎拯救你所愛(ài)的人和你的鄰居的生命,。已經(jīng)報(bào)名的志愿者們理解這一點(diǎn),,而且他們能夠比任何人更好地宣傳這一點(diǎn),?!?/p>
庫(kù)徹這個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單明了的想法可謂一呼百應(yīng),這樣一項(xiàng)公益宣傳活動(dòng)已經(jīng)在全美范圍內(nèi)展開(kāi)了,。最近,大衛(wèi)·埃利森的Skydance Media公司與美國(guó)國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究院(National Institutes of Health)的防疫部門(mén)合拍了一則90秒的公益廣告,,這則廣告由哈里森·福特?fù)?dān)任解說(shuō),,已于9月25日在CBS電視臺(tái)播出,,現(xiàn)已登陸美國(guó)其他主流電視臺(tái)和有線電視網(wǎng)絡(luò)。這則廣告有好幾個(gè)版本,,里面有一些臨床試驗(yàn)志愿者的真實(shí)聲音,,為了方便線上分享,它已同步登陸Facebook,、YouTube和Instagram等社交平臺(tái),。
這則廣告引用了美國(guó)前總統(tǒng)肯尼迪的那句名言:“不要問(wèn)國(guó)家能為你做什么,問(wèn)問(wèn)你能為國(guó)家做什么,?!睆V告呼吁美國(guó)民眾踴躍通過(guò)美國(guó)國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究院的新冠病毒預(yù)防網(wǎng)絡(luò)平臺(tái)進(jìn)行報(bào)名,,爭(zhēng)當(dāng)新冠疫苗和藥物臨床試驗(yàn)的志愿者。
阿格斯表示,,到目前為止,大約已有50萬(wàn)名美國(guó)人注冊(cè)成為了新冠肺炎相關(guān)臨床試驗(yàn)的志愿者,,但美國(guó)很有可能還需要100萬(wàn)名志愿者,。阿格斯與國(guó)際上的很多新冠疫苗研發(fā)項(xiàng)目都保持著密切合作,。目前有五支很有希望的疫苗已經(jīng)進(jìn)入了三期臨床試驗(yàn),研發(fā)者分別是輝瑞(與德國(guó)BioNTech公司合作),、阿斯利康(與牛津大學(xué)合作),、Moderna,、強(qiáng)生和諾瓦瓦克斯(Novavax)。按程序來(lái)說(shuō),,這五支疫苗的三期試驗(yàn)大約需要17.4萬(wàn)名志愿者,。但實(shí)際上,考慮到接種對(duì)象的種族,、年齡,、健康狀態(tài)和地區(qū)等影響因素,,他們需要的志愿者應(yīng)該遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)這個(gè)數(shù)量,這樣才可以確保被試者相對(duì)公平地代表了美國(guó)社會(huì)的人口構(gòu)成,。
Bio.org是生物制藥行業(yè)的一個(gè)行業(yè)組織,,它目前正在追蹤188種候選疫苗,、198種抗病毒藥物,和351種正處于不同研究階段的潛在療法,。要想知道任何一種疫苗或藥物是否有效,,至少在美國(guó),,相關(guān)疫苗和藥物在獲得美國(guó)食品與藥品管理局的審批前,至少要經(jīng)過(guò)兩次嚴(yán)格受控的人體試驗(yàn),。而為了戰(zhàn)勝新冠疫情,,我們可能得需要好幾種可用的疫苗和藥物:一是要有可用的疫苗來(lái)防止病毒引發(fā)更多病例,;二是對(duì)于疫苗防不住的那部分,還得有藥物來(lái)治療嚴(yán)重的感染,。因此我們需要大量志愿者來(lái)測(cè)試它們。
為什么需要那么多志愿者呢,?阿古斯表示,,首先,新冠疫苗不僅面對(duì)那些有嚴(yán)重基礎(chǔ)病的人群,,而是要面對(duì)全球幾十億人。美國(guó)有3.3億人口,,要想控制疫情的大面積傳播,,這3.3億人中的大部分都是要接種疫苗的。因此疫苗的安全性和有效性門(mén)檻是相當(dāng)高的。
盡管疫苗總體上是非常安全的,,但和任何藥物一樣,,它對(duì)不同的人也會(huì)產(chǎn)生不同的影響。對(duì)于任何一支新冠肺炎疫苗,,要想真正證明它適合在全球范圍內(nèi)使用,,就必須在年輕人、老年人以及有各種基礎(chǔ)病的人群中進(jìn)行測(cè)試,。而且這些人的人口基數(shù)并不是個(gè)小數(shù)目,,根據(jù)美國(guó)醫(yī)療保險(xiǎn)和醫(yī)療補(bǔ)助服務(wù)中心(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)的數(shù)據(jù),在美國(guó),,大約有5000萬(wàn)到1.29億的非老年人都患有某種基礎(chǔ)病,。
其次,這些疫苗和藥物還有必要針對(duì)不同種族和國(guó)籍的人進(jìn)行測(cè)試,。曾經(jīng)有人對(duì)美國(guó)食品與藥品管理局在2008年至2013年批準(zhǔn)的167種新藥進(jìn)行過(guò)研究,,結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn),大約五分之一的新藥在某些種族和民族的人身上有不同表現(xiàn),。這種差異在某些情況下表現(xiàn)在對(duì)藥物的吸收和代謝上,也就是最終還有多少藥量保持在人體之內(nèi),;還有些時(shí)候則表現(xiàn)在對(duì)藥物的反應(yīng)上,。甚至兩者兼而有之的也有,。
從目前的病情數(shù)據(jù)看,對(duì)新冠疫苗和藥物來(lái)說(shuō),,這種差異很可能造成更顯著的影響,。美國(guó)疾控中心今年8月公布的數(shù)據(jù)顯示,,患有新冠肺炎的黑人的住院率比非拉美裔的白人高出4.7倍,死亡率也比后者高出2.1倍,。另外,,拉美裔和美國(guó)印第安人也比白人更容易發(fā)展為重癥甚至死亡,。雖然這種風(fēng)險(xiǎn)有可能是由相關(guān)族群中的其他基礎(chǔ)因素導(dǎo)致的,,但說(shuō)不定也受生理因素的影響,。總而言之,,相關(guān)臨床試驗(yàn)有必要包含大量的黑人和拉美裔志愿者,這樣才能夠在疫苗大范圍使用前,,發(fā)現(xiàn)它可能造成的負(fù)作用,。
然而有關(guān)報(bào)道表明,,在目前正在進(jìn)行的相關(guān)臨床試驗(yàn)中,情況恰恰是相反的,。據(jù)《華盛頓郵報(bào)》報(bào)道,,截至8月底,,在報(bào)名參加輝瑞和Moderna疫苗研究的志愿者中,黑人和拉美裔加起來(lái)只占了五分之一,。在報(bào)名美國(guó)國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究院新冠病毒預(yù)防網(wǎng)絡(luò)平臺(tái)的志愿者中,,黑人和拉美裔加起來(lái)還不到十分之一。(而在美國(guó)的總?cè)丝谥?,黑人占?3.4%,拉美裔占了18%,。)雖然少數(shù)族裔在醫(yī)學(xué)臨床試驗(yàn)中的代表性不足已經(jīng)是一個(gè)老問(wèn)題了,,但在疫情時(shí)代,,這個(gè)問(wèn)題的嚴(yán)重性又被上升到了一個(gè)新的水平,。
有鑒于此,這則公益廣告也希望能把信息傳遞給大量的黑人觀眾和拉美裔觀眾,。為此,它也登上了黑人觀眾居多的BET和歐普拉電視網(wǎng),,以及以西語(yǔ)觀眾為主體的Telemundo和Univision電視網(wǎng),。
阿格斯指出,,除了確保種族和民族的多樣性以外,,志愿者隊(duì)伍中還應(yīng)該包括來(lái)自全國(guó)各地的人(尤其是疫情比較嚴(yán)重的地區(qū)),并且還應(yīng)包括處于不同健康狀態(tài)的人,。美國(guó)有100多家醫(yī)院都在開(kāi)展新冠疫苗和藥物的臨床試驗(yàn),相關(guān)研究通常需要志愿者在一年或兩年里到研究場(chǎng)所復(fù)查10次左右,。
當(dāng)然,,在“雙盲”試驗(yàn)中,受試者不會(huì)知道他們接種的是究竟是疫苗還是安慰劑,。但他們應(yīng)該知道,,他們正在幫助世界終結(jié)這次疫情。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
譯者:樸成奎
這個(gè)主意最初是好萊塢大帥哥阿什頓·庫(kù)徹提出的,。庫(kù)徹是好萊塢知名演員和科技公司投資人,,他在與南加州大學(xué)勞倫斯·埃里森變革醫(yī)學(xué)研究所(Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine at USC)的首席執(zhí)行官戴維斯·阿格斯談話時(shí)指出,美國(guó)的抗疫工作要想取得成功,,首先要解決一個(gè)艱巨的挑戰(zhàn)——招募到足夠多的志愿者來(lái)參與新冠疫苗和藥物的試驗(yàn)工作,。庫(kù)徹建議,美國(guó)應(yīng)該開(kāi)展一項(xiàng)宣傳活動(dòng),,讓那些已經(jīng)報(bào)名的志愿者錄制一段視頻,,向大家解釋他們?yōu)槭裁匆鲞@件事?!八麄兾唇?jīng)過(guò)濾的聲音就是一個(gè)強(qiáng)大的佐證,。”而這就是這次宣傳活動(dòng)需要傳遞的信息,。阿格斯說(shuō):“疫苗無(wú)關(guān)政治,,只關(guān)乎科學(xué)、公民責(zé)任,,只關(guān)乎拯救你所愛(ài)的人和你的鄰居的生命,。已經(jīng)報(bào)名的志愿者們理解這一點(diǎn),而且他們能夠比任何人更好地宣傳這一點(diǎn),?!?/p>
庫(kù)徹這個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單明了的想法可謂一呼百應(yīng),這樣一項(xiàng)公益宣傳活動(dòng)已經(jīng)在全美范圍內(nèi)展開(kāi)了,。最近,,大衛(wèi)·埃利森的Skydance Media公司與美國(guó)國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究院(National Institutes of Health)的防疫部門(mén)合拍了一則90秒的公益廣告,這則廣告由哈里森·福特?fù)?dān)任解說(shuō),,已于9月25日在CBS電視臺(tái)播出,,現(xiàn)已登陸美國(guó)其他主流電視臺(tái)和有線電視網(wǎng)絡(luò),。這則廣告有好幾個(gè)版本,里面有一些臨床試驗(yàn)志愿者的真實(shí)聲音,,為了方便線上分享,,它已同步登陸Facebook,、YouTube和Instagram等社交平臺(tái),。
這則廣告引用了美國(guó)前總統(tǒng)肯尼迪的那句名言:“不要問(wèn)國(guó)家能為你做什么,問(wèn)問(wèn)你能為國(guó)家做什么,?!睆V告呼吁美國(guó)民眾踴躍通過(guò)美國(guó)國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究院的新冠病毒預(yù)防網(wǎng)絡(luò)平臺(tái)進(jìn)行報(bào)名,爭(zhēng)當(dāng)新冠疫苗和藥物臨床試驗(yàn)的志愿者,。
阿格斯表示,,到目前為止,大約已有50萬(wàn)名美國(guó)人注冊(cè)成為了新冠肺炎相關(guān)臨床試驗(yàn)的志愿者,,但美國(guó)很有可能還需要100萬(wàn)名志愿者,。阿格斯與國(guó)際上的很多新冠疫苗研發(fā)項(xiàng)目都保持著密切合作。目前有五支很有希望的疫苗已經(jīng)進(jìn)入了三期臨床試驗(yàn),,研發(fā)者分別是輝瑞(與德國(guó)BioNTech公司合作),、阿斯利康(與牛津大學(xué)合作)、Moderna,、強(qiáng)生和諾瓦瓦克斯(Novavax),。按程序來(lái)說(shuō),這五支疫苗的三期試驗(yàn)大約需要17.4萬(wàn)名志愿者,。但實(shí)際上,,考慮到接種對(duì)象的種族、年齡,、健康狀態(tài)和地區(qū)等影響因素,他們需要的志愿者應(yīng)該遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)這個(gè)數(shù)量,,這樣才可以確保被試者相對(duì)公平地代表了美國(guó)社會(huì)的人口構(gòu)成,。
Bio.org是生物制藥行業(yè)的一個(gè)行業(yè)組織,它目前正在追蹤188種候選疫苗,、198種抗病毒藥物,和351種正處于不同研究階段的潛在療法,。要想知道任何一種疫苗或藥物是否有效,,至少在美國(guó),相關(guān)疫苗和藥物在獲得美國(guó)食品與藥品管理局的審批前,,至少要經(jīng)過(guò)兩次嚴(yán)格受控的人體試驗(yàn),。而為了戰(zhàn)勝新冠疫情,我們可能得需要好幾種可用的疫苗和藥物:一是要有可用的疫苗來(lái)防止病毒引發(fā)更多病例,;二是對(duì)于疫苗防不住的那部分,還得有藥物來(lái)治療嚴(yán)重的感染,。因此我們需要大量志愿者來(lái)測(cè)試它們,。
為什么需要那么多志愿者呢?阿古斯表示,,首先,,新冠疫苗不僅面對(duì)那些有嚴(yán)重基礎(chǔ)病的人群,,而是要面對(duì)全球幾十億人。美國(guó)有3.3億人口,,要想控制疫情的大面積傳播,,這3.3億人中的大部分都是要接種疫苗的。因此疫苗的安全性和有效性門(mén)檻是相當(dāng)高的,。
盡管疫苗總體上是非常安全的,,但和任何藥物一樣,,它對(duì)不同的人也會(huì)產(chǎn)生不同的影響。對(duì)于任何一支新冠肺炎疫苗,,要想真正證明它適合在全球范圍內(nèi)使用,,就必須在年輕人、老年人以及有各種基礎(chǔ)病的人群中進(jìn)行測(cè)試,。而且這些人的人口基數(shù)并不是個(gè)小數(shù)目,根據(jù)美國(guó)醫(yī)療保險(xiǎn)和醫(yī)療補(bǔ)助服務(wù)中心(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)的數(shù)據(jù),,在美國(guó),,大約有5000萬(wàn)到1.29億的非老年人都患有某種基礎(chǔ)病,。
其次,這些疫苗和藥物還有必要針對(duì)不同種族和國(guó)籍的人進(jìn)行測(cè)試,。曾經(jīng)有人對(duì)美國(guó)食品與藥品管理局在2008年至2013年批準(zhǔn)的167種新藥進(jìn)行過(guò)研究,,結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn),,大約五分之一的新藥在某些種族和民族的人身上有不同表現(xiàn),。這種差異在某些情況下表現(xiàn)在對(duì)藥物的吸收和代謝上,也就是最終還有多少藥量保持在人體之內(nèi),;還有些時(shí)候則表現(xiàn)在對(duì)藥物的反應(yīng)上,。甚至兩者兼而有之的也有,。
從目前的病情數(shù)據(jù)看,對(duì)新冠疫苗和藥物來(lái)說(shuō),,這種差異很可能造成更顯著的影響,。美國(guó)疾控中心今年8月公布的數(shù)據(jù)顯示,,患有新冠肺炎的黑人的住院率比非拉美裔的白人高出4.7倍,死亡率也比后者高出2.1倍,。另外,,拉美裔和美國(guó)印第安人也比白人更容易發(fā)展為重癥甚至死亡,。雖然這種風(fēng)險(xiǎn)有可能是由相關(guān)族群中的其他基礎(chǔ)因素導(dǎo)致的,但說(shuō)不定也受生理因素的影響,??偠灾嚓P(guān)臨床試驗(yàn)有必要包含大量的黑人和拉美裔志愿者,,這樣才能夠在疫苗大范圍使用前,發(fā)現(xiàn)它可能造成的負(fù)作用,。
然而有關(guān)報(bào)道表明,,在目前正在進(jìn)行的相關(guān)臨床試驗(yàn)中,情況恰恰是相反的,。據(jù)《華盛頓郵報(bào)》報(bào)道,截至8月底,,在報(bào)名參加輝瑞和Moderna疫苗研究的志愿者中,,黑人和拉美裔加起來(lái)只占了五分之一。在報(bào)名美國(guó)國(guó)家衛(wèi)生研究院新冠病毒預(yù)防網(wǎng)絡(luò)平臺(tái)的志愿者中,,黑人和拉美裔加起來(lái)還不到十分之一。(而在美國(guó)的總?cè)丝谥?,黑人占?3.4%,,拉美裔占了18%。)雖然少數(shù)族裔在醫(yī)學(xué)臨床試驗(yàn)中的代表性不足已經(jīng)是一個(gè)老問(wèn)題了,,但在疫情時(shí)代,這個(gè)問(wèn)題的嚴(yán)重性又被上升到了一個(gè)新的水平,。
有鑒于此,,這則公益廣告也希望能把信息傳遞給大量的黑人觀眾和拉美裔觀眾,。為此,,它也登上了黑人觀眾居多的BET和歐普拉電視網(wǎng),以及以西語(yǔ)觀眾為主體的Telemundo和Univision電視網(wǎng),。
阿格斯指出,除了確保種族和民族的多樣性以外,,志愿者隊(duì)伍中還應(yīng)該包括來(lái)自全國(guó)各地的人(尤其是疫情比較嚴(yán)重的地區(qū)),并且還應(yīng)包括處于不同健康狀態(tài)的人,。美國(guó)有100多家醫(yī)院都在開(kāi)展新冠疫苗和藥物的臨床試驗(yàn),相關(guān)研究通常需要志愿者在一年或兩年里到研究場(chǎng)所復(fù)查10次左右,。
當(dāng)然,,在“雙盲”試驗(yàn)中,,受試者不會(huì)知道他們接種的是究竟是疫苗還是安慰劑。但他們應(yīng)該知道,,他們正在幫助世界終結(jié)這次疫情,。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
譯者:樸成奎
It was Ashton Kutcher’s idea, originally. The actor and technology company investor was talking recently with David Agus, M.D., CEO of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine at USC, about a formidable challenge in the battle against COVID-19: recruiting enough volunteers for the many clinical studies needed to test experimental vaccines and therapies. Kutcher suggested an awareness campaign in which Americans who had already volunteered for a study record a video explaining why they’d done it. “Their unfiltered voices will offer a powerful testimony,” Agus recalls Kutcher saying, and that’s what we need to get the message out. “The vaccine effort isn’t about politics,” says Agus. “It’s simply about good science and civic duty and saving the lives of your loved ones and neighbors. Those who have volunteered for trials understand that—and can communicate that better than anyone.”
This straightforward notion has now been transformed into a striking public service announcement that’s being rolled out nationally. The 90-second PSA, narrated by Harrison Ford and produced by David Ellison’s Skydance Media in partnership with the National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 Prevention Network, launched September 25 on CBS, and is slated to air on other major television and cable networks as well. There are also shareable versions of the ad—which features a number of personal statements from clinical trials volunteers, designed for Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
Hearkening back to President John F. Kennedy’s stirring call to action—“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”—the new campaign urges Americans to volunteer for a clinical trial through COVID-19 Prevention Network’s registration platform, which is helping to find participants for all the major ongoing studies.
About 500,000 Americans have already registered to be potentially included in COVID clinical trials to date, but we’ll likely need a million more to sign up, says Agus, who is working closely with many of the international vaccine efforts. For context, the ongoing Phase 3 trials for just the five leading vaccine candidates—those being developed by Pfizer(with the German firm BioNTech), AstraZeneca (with Oxford University), Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax—require 174,000 study participants, according to their protocols. But in truth, they require many more volunteers than that merely to get the needed compositions of race, age, health status, and location—distributions that are necessary to ensure that the trial populations fairly represent the makeup of society at large.
Bio.org, a trade group for the biopharma industry, is currently tracking188 vaccine candidates, 198 antiviral therapies, and 351 would-be treatments in various stages of development. Before any one of them can be proven safe and effective—and, in the United States at least, approved for use by the FDA—they would generally need to be vetted in human volunteers in two well-controlled studies. To defeat COVID, it’s likely that we’ll need several viable vaccines and therapies—the first, to prevent the SARS-CoV-2 virus from causing illness; the second, to treat the more serious infections that do occur. And that means we’ll need lots of volunteers to test them.
Why so many? For one reason, COVID vaccines will eventually be given not just to a confined group of patients with serious disease, but rather to billions of people around the world. In the U.S., most of the country’s 330 million people will need to be vaccinated in order to curtail the spread. That puts the bar for both safety and effectiveness incredibly high, says Agus.
While extremely safe overall, vaccines—as with any medicine—can affect different people in different ways. For any candidate COVID vaccine or therapy to truly demonstrate that it’s appropriate for global use, it will have to be tested in the very young and the very old, as well as in people with any number of pre-existing medical conditions. That’s no small number: According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), between 50 million and 129 million non-elderly Americans have a pre-existing health condition of some form.
It’s equally important that vaccines and other drugs be tested on people of different races and national origin. One study that examined 167 new drugs approved by the FDA between 2008 and 2013 found that roughly one in five acted differently in some racial or ethnic groups versus others. In some of the cases, the difference lay in the way the drug was absorbed, metabolized, or eliminated, which ultimately left more or less drug exposed in the body, depending on who took it; in others, it produced a different response; in still others, it did both.
And in the case of COVID, such differences in vaccine or drug interactions could conceivably have far more impact, given the huge disparity in disease outcomes witnessed so far. According to data posted by the CDC in August, Black Americans with COVID have a rate of hospitalization that’s 4.7 times higher than that for non-Hispanic whites, and a rate of death 2.1 times higher. Hispanic Americans and American Indians are also far more likely to get extremely ill from COVID, or die from it, than their white counterparts. Though much of this increased risk may be due to other underlying conditions more prevalent in those groups, there may as yet be other biological factors at work. That is all the more reason to make sure clinical trials include substantial numbers of Black and Latino volunteers—so that potential complications can be unearthed before any vaccine or drug is given to many millions of people.
But reports suggest that the opposite is happening in the COVID-related clinical trials already underway. As of late August, just one-fifth of those enrolled in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine studies, for instance, were Black or Hispanic, according to reporting by the Washington Post. And among those signing up for the COVID-19 Prevention Network’s Volunteer Screening Registry, the share of both groups combined was closer to 10%. (In the U.S. as a whole, for comparison, Blacks make up 13.4% of the population; Latinos, 18.%.) While the under-representation of minority groups in clinical trials is a longstanding problem, the scale of the challenge in the COVID era is at a whole new level.
Which is why the creators of the new PSA hope to bring their message to television networks with large numbers of Black viewers (including BET and the Oprah Winfrey Network) and to Spanish-speaking audiences (Telemundo, and Univision).
In addition to racial and ethnic diversity, says Agus, it’s important that the volunteer registry have people from all over the country (particularly in areas where the disease is spreading) and include those with a wide range of health conditions. Clinical trials are currently in progress at some 100 medical centers around the U.S., with studies typically asking volunteers to visit the research site 10 or times over one to two years.
In the case of the “blinded” vaccine trials, of course, participants will not know ahead of time whether they’ll get the experimental vaccine or a placebo. What they will know, however, is that they’re helping to bring this pandemic to an end.