Some of Rutgers’ top health researchers are calling for a change in our approach to developing COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccines to fight future pandemics, to incorporate both conventional and challenge trails. Conventional randomized controlled trials are where participants receive a vaccine or placebo and then may or may not be exposed as they continue with their lives over the course of the months that follow. Human challenge vaccine trials are where participants receive a vaccine or placebo and are then artificially exposed to the virus.
The commentary by bioethicist Nir Eyal and epidemiologists Tobias Gerhard and Brian Strom (chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences) – published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety – examines how this parallel approach to vaccine trials can lead to faster and more accurate vaccine assessment and more effective pandemic response. To read the full story.