Wow, Astra-Zeneca just cannot get it right.  Everyone, take a minute to recall that Thalidomide disaster of the past which happened in Europe, not the US, thanks to the FDA.

In a statement released shortly after midnight, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that an independent panel of medical experts that has been helping to oversee AstraZeneca’s U.S. trial had “expressed concern that AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.”

I am obviously extremely anxious to get a vaccine, but at this point, can anyone really want the AZ vaccine?  The UK has done a fantastic job of getting its citizens vaccinated, but I can’t help but wonder if they will achieve the desired results given their heavy reliance on AZ.  Time will tell.  We’ll probably know eventually if this vaccine is effective or not.

I had been thinking that despite the very checkered history AZ has thus far, if the US signed off on it based on the results from the *new trial* that it was clearly safe and effective.  The original trial seemed like it was totally screwed up and hard to draw firm conclusions from.  However, based on a new trial, we should get clear results.  However, they are now announcing results based on “outdated information”, etc.?  Wow.  Just wow.

Companies sponsoring drug or vaccine trials typically wait for the monitoring board to review analyses and conclude that the study has yielded an answer before they announce trial results.

I guess we’ll have to see how this plays out.

The fresh data may have arrived too late to make much difference in the United States, where the vaccine is not yet authorized and is unlikely to become available before May. By then, federal officials predict, there will be enough vaccine doses for all of the nation’s adults from the three vaccines that have already been authorized: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

Good news for us, I guess.