The two-monthslong sprint among drugmakers to tweak their COVID-19 vaccines could have trampled pandemic response efforts, Céline Gounder, MD, and Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD, Kaiser Health News' public health editor and editor-in-chief, wrote in a Sept. 9 column.
The U.S. has purchased $3.2 billion worth of the new omicron-targeted boosters that became fully authorized Sept. 9, but those funds were taken from a budget previously marked for COVID-19 treatments and tests, Dr. Gounder and Dr. Rosenthal wrote. At-home COVID-19 tests are no longer offered for free because of dwindling funds, and the nation is expected to run out of free vaccines by January.
Pfizer's and Moderna's next-generation vaccines, which clinical trials proved effective but never required human trials, could be a hint that "the pharmaceutical industry may be moving into more familiar territory," the physicians wrote.
Now, drugmakers could be "developing products that may be a smidgen better than what came before, selling — sometimes overselling — their increased effectiveness in the absence of adequate controlled studies or published data, advertising them as desirable for all when only some stand to benefit significantly, and in all likelihood raising the price later," they said.
Dr. Gounder and Dr. Rosenthal acknowledged the high efficacy rates of the omicron-focused boosters but said "salesmanship trumps science" once a product has a marketing campaign behind it.