EPC: Why do you think your tweet
resonated with so many people?
Dr Mark Toshner: I’m not 100%
certain, I think part of the reason is
that when you look at the surface of
vaccine-hesitant people, it turns out
that safety is the number one fear,
and it just hasn't been addressed
by anybody systematically. When
people are out there who aren’t
necessarily anti-vaccine, but have
anxiety because of the speed and
the questions of safety, it's because
nobody’s actually explained to them
what a normal process looks like and
what this speeded up process looks
like. I think it just spoke to something
that people were anxious about, and
that nobody was really addressing.
What do you think needs to happen for
the general public to gain confidence in
the pharmaceutical industry?
One of the problems is that people
don’t understand the process and
how rigorous it is. That’s really been
hammered home to me, even by
colleagues. They are coming to me
to express reservations and don't
understand the process. Little simple
things, like people, who should know
better, not clamouring for immediate
release of data in interim analysis,
and I have to sit down and explain to
them that, by definition, you’re not
going to get an extensive release of
patient-level data interim analysis.
Part of this is just us educating people
about what the clinical trial process
looks like in the 21st century, and also
how rigorous some of the safety steps
in that process are. That’s really what
I’ve been tweeting about: very prosaic
trial processes. It turns out nobody in
the wider public, and often even in the
medical fraternity, understands them
very well.
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