The Saline Placebo in Vaccine Studies
The Saline Placebo in Vaccine Studies
The original sin of anti-vaccine propaganda
The anti-vaccine movement technically started even before we had our first vaccine - Jenner’s smallpox vaccine. That’s right, hundreds of years ago there were some folks against variolation, the precursor to his vaccine!
Since that time, we have seen some of their arguments against vaccines change.
After all, no one knew about saline placebos for vaccine trials in the 17th Century…
The Saline Placebo in Vaccine Studies
Even one hundred years ago, we were advanced enough to develop vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, and rabies, etc., saving millions of lives. We still didn’t know about saline placebos though.
That eventually changed.
Beginning with the polio vaccines, a saline placebo was often used as an unvaccinated control unless an effective vaccine already existed.
And despite propaganda from anti-vaccine influencers, that means that a lot of vaccines were tested using saline placebos, from the acellular pertussis and BCG vaccines to the individual measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines, and many more.
What about Prevnar 7?
Technically, it was the first licensed vaccine of its kind - a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. BUT, it wasn’t the first licensed pneumococcal vaccine. We already had pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines, although none were approved for children under age two years.
We did have other vaccines that protect children against bacterial meningitis though.
And that’s why a meningitis vaccine was used as a control vaccine.
But why not use a saline placebo?
if you use a saline placebo, there is a chance that the folks who got the placebo will know that it’s saline, which introduces bias into the study. Remember, you want the study to be double blinded. No one should know who is getting a vaccine and who is getting the placebo, otherwise it could interfere with reporting of possible side effects. That’s why even if a control vaccine isn’t used, they might use the other ingredients of the vaccine without the antigens.
if you use a saline placebo, there is a chance that the folks who got the placebo will get sick with a disease that could have been prevented with a control vaccine. So they are taking a risk from being in the trial, but aren’t getting any benefits, which is unethical.
using a saline placebo isn’t always necessary. If a safe and effective control vaccine is available for a similar disease, many of which were evaluated with saline placebos, than you can study if a new vaccine has more side effects than the control vaccine.
The real question here is why do folks like Aaron Siri continue to push misinformation about saline placebos?
After all, how many double blind, placebo control trials (with saline) have to be done before they will be satisfied that vaccines are safe?
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