Making Emergency Use of Experimental Vaccines Safer

Ethical and logistical challenges of deploying experimental vaccines in humanitarian emergencies are exacerbated by a paucity of safety and efficacy data. For outbreaks caused by pathogens with high mortality rates and few treatments, such as Ebola virus disease, not offering access to experimental...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAMA journal of ethics Vol. 22; no. 1; p. E43
Main Authors Asundi, Archana, Bhadelia, Nahid
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.01.2020
Subjects
Altruism
Disease Outbreaks - ethics
Drug Approval
Emergencies
Health Services Accessibility - ethics
Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola - prevention & control
Humans
Patient Safety
Research Subjects
Risk
Vaccination - ethics
Vaccines - adverse effects
Vulnerable Populations
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Summary:Ethical and logistical challenges of deploying experimental vaccines in humanitarian emergencies are exacerbated by a paucity of safety and efficacy data. For outbreaks caused by pathogens with high mortality rates and few treatments, such as Ebola virus disease, not offering access to experimental vaccines with some evidence of efficacy can also be ethically suspect. This article recommends (1) gathering more preclinical data about experimental vaccines' safety and (2) improving research infrastructure to enable participation of a wide range of subjects in affected communities over long trial periods. Motivating these goals would facilitate clearer definitions of and .
ISSN:2376-6980
DOI:10.1001/amajethics.2020.43