Vaccine development process is safe, claims of the contrary are baseless

All of our lives have been drastically impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — and we know all of us are eager to return to the way things were before the pandemic began. However, that simply won’t be possible without a safe, effective vaccine. Fortunately, due to the strength of American innovation and unprecedented public-private partnerships, a COVID-19 vaccine is on the horizon. We, as the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee and a physician on the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, have been closely following our nation’s progress — and we are confident that we will have a safe, effective vaccine soon.

On July 21, 2020, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing on vaccine development. The subcommittee heard from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, and Pfizer. All five companies are working on various vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19 and have received federal funding. Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson are all now conducting “phase 3” clinical trials for their COVID-19 vaccine candidates, which is the last stage of testing prior to regulatory approval. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson both recently paused their studies to examine an illness in one of the participants. This is standard protocol, and should give us even more confidence that vaccine companies are following standard safety procedures in their trials — not rushing through the process.