Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 6:25 pm
On the face of it, they've taken short cuts on the legal side. As part of the paperwork with the Oxford vaccine, I was given what describes itself as a "Package leaflet" which states the vaccine to have been "given authorisation for temporary supply"
My understanding is that this is mostly avoiding loads of unnecessary procedural waits (see what Kevin Thurlow said earlier), or committee paperwork box-ticking, but implies no difference to the actual safety and efficacy trials that get done, or to the safety appraisals derived from them. The only major difference to normal procedure l've read about is that the companies (Pfizer and AZ)
asked the UK govt to give them a greater level of indemnity than is usually applied with vaccines, on the grounds that the govt was pushing them to do things faster than usual. The UK govt agreed. The EU didn't, leading to more protracted negotiations, which is one major reason the EU vaccination programmes have taken longer to get started. But all the real-world data now emerging from the vaccination programmes (i.e. data from mass vaccination of large groups of people, incl, many older folk, rather than just from trial populations) back up that the vaccines are safe and effective.
Roger de Coverly wrote:Later in the leaflet it reassuring says "None of the ingredients in this vaccine can cause COVID-19".
I suspect that's been put there because some internet University-of-Google types will have been making hay saying stuff like "You know vaccines are the virus that causes the disease but that they've SUPPOSEDLY weakened. Supposedly." This is true of some older vaccines (technically called "attenuated virus vaccines"), but it's not true of either the BioNTek/Pfizer or Oxford/AZ Covid-19 ones.
Speaking as one of those University scientist types and the spouse of an NHS doctor who works in Occupational Health (who give out vaccines...), I will only say that we've both been vaccinated and we took the first appointment we were offered with the first available vaccine. My 83-yr old mother has had two doses of Pfizer's magic elixir. I'm looking forward to my second dose next month, after which I might fancy the odd chess game in a park somewhere.