Well, this sure makes things interesting. At midnight, the NIH (specifically, an NIH subunit called National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [NIAID]) released this statement…
It’s HIGHLY unusual for the Data Safety and Monitoring Board (DSMB) and a vaccine sponsor (AstraZeneca) to publicly (or privately in that matter) disagree. We (scientists and the general public) don’t have access to the raw data, so I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but this is concerning. Especially given AstraZeneca’s rocky history throughout the pandemic.
I’m feeding a baby right now, so I can’t make this post pretty, but here’s an old post I wrote about who, exactly, the DSMB is: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/.../astrazen...
Here’s the link to the official NIH statement: https://www.nih.gov/.../niaid-statement-astrazeneca-vaccine
Love, YLE
If I had to guess, I'd say this is a minor issue. I'm thinking AZ rushed their results out a little sooner than the DSMB wanted them to so as to distract from the thrombosis (non) issue that arose in Europe last week. It's probably a matter of a few i's undotted and t's uncrossed. But certainly enough unfinished work to (justifiably) piss off the DSMB. I have no evidence to support my claim. Just a hunch.