SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — It’s a term we’ve heard a lot during the pandemic: emergency use authorization.
From ventilators to diagnostic tests to experimental drugs like remdesivir, the Food and Drug Administration has issued at least 616 emergency use authorizations, or EUAs, since the pandemic began.
“That’s such a powerful term: emergency use authorization,” said President Donald Trump on Aug. 23 when announcing an EUA for convalescent plasma.
Top officials at the FDA are now floating the idea of using an EUA to speed up distribution of a vaccine against COVID-19, writing that it “may be appropriate” under certain circumstances. Critics contend it would be a dangerous move.
The mechanism was put into law back in 2004, and EUAs have been used in several health emergencies since, including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
An EUA allows the FDA to temporarily authorize a drug or device for use during an emergency under certain conditions. There must be no formally approved alternatives to the product, and the available evidence must suggest the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks.
“Because in some emergencies, we just cannot wait for all the evidence needed for full FDA approval,” the agency says in a video explaining the rationale for an EUA.
While EUAs are relatively common for diagnostic tests and experimental drugs, there has only been one EUA issued for a vaccine. In 2005, the FDA authorized a vaccine intended to protect U.S. soldiers from an anthrax chemical attack. It was the first time the FDA ever used the EUA process.
In that case, the product, Anthrax Vaccine Absorbed, had been formally licensed in 1970 as safe and effective against anthrax on the skin, but was not formally approved to counteract inhaled anthrax.
In a letter to pharmaceutical companies, the FDA said it “may be appropriate” to issue an EUA for a COVID-19 vaccine “once studies have demonstrated the safety and effectiveness” of the product, but before other steps in the traditional submission process, like detailed information on how the vaccine was made and tested.
“It is extremely rigorous,” Dr. Christian Ramers of Family Health Centers of San Diego said of the typical FDA approval process. “People have to submit thousands of pages of documents. They have to open their books, essentially, and show all of the detail on how these things have been tested.”
An EUA could allow for the release of a vaccine before the election, something President Trump has suggested but other members of his administration have said is unlikely.
The prospect of an EUA for a vaccine alarms consumer advocates like Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen, who sent a letter to the agency urging it to avoid the expedited process.
“The amount of information on how effective it is, the amount of information on how safe it is is less than would be required for full approval,” Wolfe said. “And full approval could arguably come in three or four months.”
Wolfe thinks an EUA could backfire.
“The loss of confidence by people will contribute to a much decreased willingness to be vaccinated,” he said, citing a survey during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic that showed people were reluctant to volunteer for inoculation if the vaccine only had emergency authorization.
Critics say there’s already shaky public confidence after reports of political pressure from the president in the EUAs for convalescent plasma and for hydroxychloroquine.
In the latter case, the FDA revoked the EUA for the anti-malaria drug June 15 after more studies showed it wasn’t effective and could have serious side effects.
Dr. Ramers at Family Health Centers of San Diego says there is a big ethical difference between authorizing an experimental drug with limited data and authorizing a vaccine.
Fundamentally, doctors give drugs to patients who are already sick, and they're more willing to try something untested in a last-ditch effort. “In somebody who has been through two or three or four rounds of [chemotherapy] and nothing has worked, the risks and benefits are tilted in a different way,” he said.
“But a vaccine is a really special situation because we’re giving it to healthy people. We’re giving it to the general population before they become ill. So historically, the safety threshold for a vaccine has been way, way, way higher,” Ramers added.