Harris predicts scientists, health experts won't have last word on vaccine efficacy

Kamala Harris.
(Image credit: Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

There's a large swath of Americans who have said they wouldn't get a coronavirus vaccine if one was made widely available at a low cost, although the reasons vary.

President Trump's supporters are among those who said they would refuse — just 38 percent of likely Trump voters said they would get a vaccine in an August CNN poll, which some analysts suggested was the result of a growing distrust in science. But Trump's critics have also expressed wariness about a rushed vaccine, alleging the White House wants the Food and Drug Administration to approve one without taking all the proper precautions before the November election.

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Harris added that she doesn't think scientists and public health experts will have the last word on a vaccine (for what it's worth, Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser for the Trump administration's vaccine mission, said there has been no interference from the White House and said he would resign if there ever was.) "If past is prologue than they will not, they'll be muzzled, they'll be suppressed, they will be sidelined," she said. "Because he's looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days and he's grasping to get whatever he can to pretend he has been a leader on this issue when he is not." Read more at CNN.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.