| There it was, plain as day on the listing: Moderna Inc. planned to enroll some 30,000 people in a much-anticipated study of its promising Covid-19 vaccine candidate. As criteria for the trial spelled out, people living with HIV couldn't be among them. After a flurry of activism, though, Moderna backtracked, saying this week that it will now allow people with "controlled HIV who are not otherwise immunosuppressed." The biotech also said it had planned a separate study for people living with HIV. A similar shift appears to be in the works for vaccine research from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE that excludes people living with HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, according to a statement provided by Pfizer on Thursday.  Moderna headquarters stands in Cambridge, Massachusetts Photographer: Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg Who is included in Covid-19 vaccine research today will have tremendous implications in the years to come, especially if the experimental candidates are successful. The stakes are especially high for populations already known to be at-risk or disproportionately affected by the new coronavirus, like elderly people, those with other medical conditions and people of color. But unlike so many other features of this public-health crisis, exclusionary clinical trials are hardly unprecedented in American medicine. There's a long tradition of highly organized HIV advocacy in the U.S., and it's a community that knows especially well the difference clinical trials can make. Will everyone get that kind of support?--Emma Court | 
Post a Comment