Svartalfiar wrote: “Approved does not mean not experimental. The very fact that there is no mid- or long- term data on them is what makes them still experimental. That’s not a shortcoming, that’s the definition of experimental!”
Simply incorrect. Amazing the linguistic contortions anti-vaxxers will go through to justify their prejudices. Now, here’s the legal truth about ‘experimental’. This article is well worth reading, much more so than your typical anti-vaxxer rumble video.
An excerpt:
INTRODUCTION
To date, more than seven hundred thousand Americans have died from COVID-19, the disease cause by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and exponentially more have been impacted by it. Vaccines are an essential tool in our fight against the virus.[3] In late 2020 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for two COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, one manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and the other manufactured by Moderna.[4] In early2021, the FDA issued an EUA for a third COVID-19 vaccine by Johnson and Johnson (J&J, Janssen), which uses widely accepted adenovirus vector technology.[5] By October 2, 2021, over two hundred million people in the United States had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.[6]
Opponents have used the fact that the vaccines were each approved for use under an EUA and that they have not yet been fully licensed to argue against COVID vaccine mandates. Among other things, vaccine opponents have specifically argued that the absence of full FDA approvals means the vaccines are “experimental.” This is inaccurate and harmful because the vaccines have been given to over two hundred million people in the United States alone.
Vaccine opponents are raising the specter of unethical experimentation on people during the Holocaust and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt about COVID-19 vaccines.[7], [8] For example, the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense describes COVID-19 vaccines as “experimental” in a recent video.[9] The anti-vaccine website V is for Vaccines also uses the misnomer “experimental” to deter people from getting vaccinated,[10] featuring the claim on a short flier they sell and ask supporters to distribute.[11] The claim can also be found on other anti-vaccine propaganda.[12] Additionally, in several recent lawsuits that challenged vaccine mandates, plaintiffs characterize the COVID-19 vaccines authorized under the EUA as “experimental.”[13] For example, one hundred seventeen employees sued Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas after it mandated that all employees get vaccinated. The plaintiffs argued against the mandate, claiming that the vaccines were “experimental.” The plaintiffs further alleged that mandating the staff take an “experimental” vaccine violated the Nuremberg Code, was illegal, and was akin to Nazi medical experimentation.[14]
In short, the term “experimental” is being used normatively to deter people from getting the vaccine or as an argument against requiring the vaccine as a work condition. In the context of COVID-19 vaccines, this term is being misused, but it does raise a real question. The standard for giving an EUA is relatively lax and does allow for authorization of an “experimental” product. When would a product cease to be “experimental” in this context? This Article offers some guidance about that and explain why, under any conceivable standard, the COVID-19 vaccines now in use in the United States cannot fairly be described as “experimental.”
On August 23, 2021, the FDA licensed Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine.[15] For some, that removes the question of whether that vaccine is experimental, and it likely resolves the legal issue for mandates. However, there are still two COVID-19 vaccines under an EUA, and more importantly, the issue is likely to come up again, in the future. For that reason, setting out what should and should not count as “experimental” matters.
One should note that this article was published prior to the full approval of the vaccines.