“What it looks like is privilege and being able to gain priority access to the vaccine,” said Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Nancy Berlinger, a researcher at The Hastings Center, a nonprofit think tank, agrees. “It is a very problematic example that [the vaccine] goes to VIPs first, instead of sorting and archiving. You can imagine that people are watching this closely, “she said.
Vaccines against Covid-19 are widely seen as a way to escape a pandemic that wreaked havoc around the world last year, but at the moment they are scarce. In the United States, two – one developed by Moderna and the other by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in partnership with BioNTech – received authorization for emergency use in early December by the United States Food and Drug Administration, and several other vaccines are being prepared.
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 12 million doses of the two vaccines have been distributed to states so far, and almost 2.6 million doses have actually been administered, primarily to healthcare professionals and residents. long-term care facilities – both groups at the recommended first level of the CDC for vaccine prioritization.
In a statement issued by the company, Moderna explained that it is making the injection available to its workers in the United States through a voluntary and confidential program “to provide an additional layer of protection COVID-19” because Moderna workers are performing essential services in the development, manufacture and distribution of the vaccine.
As for the adult family members of the team, the rationale is “to reduce the risk of absenteeism and interruption due to a COVID-19 infection in an adult family member”.
In an email to CNN, a spokeswoman for Moderna said, “We have committed specific volumes to the U.S. government and hope to fulfill those commitments. So these are doses beyond those commitments and sales.” He noted that Moderna has approximately 1,200 employees.
This is in contrast to Pfizer, a global giant with almost 90,000 employees. According to a statement sent to CNN Monday, “Pfizer plans to vaccinate its employees as groups of them become eligible under the CDC guidelines. The first group must be the company’s essential workers, especially in manufacturing, which are essential to the vaccine effort and the continued supply of all Pfizer drugs. There are no plans to prioritize vaccination of our executives or advisers before other high-risk groups. “
In an interview in mid-December, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC that, although he is very excited to be vaccinated when it is his turn, he does not want to be seen as “cutting the line”. However, he said that a circumstance that would lead him to be vaccinated earlier would be to help increase public confidence in his safety.
But that does not apply to other Pfizer employees. “We made the decision that if we have to do this, we will not do it with our executives. Therefore, none of the executives or board members will cut the line, they will consider their age and type of occupation,” he said. said Bourla.
While none of the experts CNN spoke to on this matter thought that the number of vaccines that could go to Moderna employees would affect the vaccine supply available for general distribution, they said it was a matter of fairness and perception.
“Moderna is trying to reward the board and the company for doing the work of creating vaccines. I will say that it is a prioritization based on gratitude. I understand; I understand the desire to do that,” said bioethicist Arthur Caplan.
But Caplan, director of the Medical Ethics Division at the Grossman School of Medicine at NYU and an analyst at CNN, still doesn’t think he passes the detection test.
“In general, my opinion is that you try to stay with high-risk people and agree on who they are and make them happen: people from the nursing home, health professionals. I think this is the right way to serve as a model for vaccine manufacturers. I’m not even happy that so many politicians are being vaccinated, “he said.
Caplan is an unpaid consultant to Moderna (as well as Janssen, the maker of another vaccine candidate), but he did not advise Moderna on this matter.
The company can argue that those involved in making the vaccine should be considered essential workers.
“I have concerns about prioritizing board members [but] not the frontline workers making the vaccine, “said Moss.
Council members, said Moss, tend to have the kind of work “where it is very easy to work remotely and protect yourself. In some other types of work that are essential, it is impossible [work remotely], and that includes frontline healthcare professionals, but also bus drivers, teachers, people who work in supermarkets. ”
“Vaccine manufacturing is obviously an essential industry during a pandemic that will only end with the development, manufacture and distribution of this vaccine – that is quite clear,” said Berlinger.
“However, we are in a time of limited supply and we have to prioritize … in a very large country. [It’s] It is important to keep in mind that we must not confuse an essential sector with a high-risk environment. That is, not everyone involved in the manufacture or distribution of a vaccine is really at high risk of contracting Covid or contracting serious Covid, “she said.
Berlinger, who is the lead author of the Ethics Framework at the Hastings Center for Healthcare Institutions Responding to Covid-19, said the Modern situation presents an “ethical test” for people who have access and can skip the line. “Should you enjoy your access? Should you skip the line if you have a chance?”
“If you can protect yourself, you must wait your turn, because this is one of those situations where the more people use your access to get to the top of the queue, it actually starts to slow things down for other people,” she said. .
Caplan also prefers to wait.
“If I were them, I would say ‘No thanks, I will wait until my turn comes.’ It’s an offer that doesn’t have to be accepted, “said Caplan.” If you’re going to accept the offer, you want to be ready to stand in front of a nursing home resident or high-risk health professional and say, ‘Yeah. that’s why I felt justified in saying yes. ‘
Andrea Diaz, Shelby Lin Erdman and Amanda Sealy contributed to this story.