AstraZeneca Accused of Cherry- Picking Data

In a world where COVID- 19 still affects everyone's lives greatly, it is crucial to try to get as many people vaccinated as possible. While this is important, it is most important to make sure that companies and countries are vaccinating people in a safe manner. AstraZeneca is the most recent company to make a version of the vaccine and it is already being used in Britain, across the European continent, and in other countries. The distribution of this shot in other countries has recently slowed down due to inconsistent reports about the effectiveness of the shot and a scare about blood clots. The possibility of vaccinated patients developing blood clots caused many countries to put the shot on hold. 

AstraZeneca is trying to be approved for usage in the United States and AstraZeneca reported that the vaccine prevented 79% of the 32,000 people in the study from developed symptomatic COVID 19. The National Institute of Health in the U.S. came out with a statement saying that the independent committee overseeing the vaccine results "expressed concern that AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.” This independent committee of people deemed that old data may have been “cherry- picked” for this study.

I think that it is very productive to have a committee that has no bias overlooking any information or data that is being processed. In this instance, the committee is made up of scientists and statisticians who are experts in this field and these people have no affiliation to the government of the United States or AstraZeneca. Every vaccine trial is overseen by a “data and safety monitoring board,” which has proven to be an effective tool here.

I think that having a committee oversee this data is crucial because the company is obviously going to want the vaccine to get approved and may be willing to only use the most attractive data. This is very important because if this shot isn’t safe, it would present major problems for our country. The USA cannot afford to tell its citizens that an unsafe vaccination has been approved for use in the country. Obviously, there is a lack of research on all COVID 19 vaccines because they haven’t been around long enough to research completely. However, a misrepresentation of data here would be negligent on behalf of AstraZeneca and the National Institute of Health.

I think that the shot will eventually be approved after all the data is searched through and analyzed further. I think that having these checks and balances on data is very powerful and productive. This committee is successfully holding AstraZeneca to the highest standard and is ensuring that the American people remain safe. I think AstraZeneca will file with the FDA soon and it will be interesting to see what the FDA thinks of the data.

https://www.startribune.com/astrazeneca-accused-of-cherry-picking-vaccine-study-data/600037501/?refresh=true