Teens in vaccine trials
Sheila Mulrooney Eldred, a health journalist, is getting a front-row seat to one of the most-anticipated pediatric trials in history, as her two teenagers participate in the Moderna Covid vaccine trial. She wrote about what it’s been like.
For Wes and Zoe, the shot itself was anticlimactic; even needle-averse Wes said it hardly hurt. Still, since most allergic reactions can occur within 30 minutes of a shot, we had to wait around for an hour afterward.
Like all kids in the current trial, Wes and Zoe got the same dose as adults, which is typical for Phase 3 clinical trials, said Dr. Jill Weatherhead, an assistant professor of infectious disease at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The author’s children, Wes and Zoe, are volunteering for the Moderna vaccine trial. Tim Gruber for The New York Times
For the next seven days, Wes and Zoe answered questions in their online diaries about any pain, achiness, swelling, fevers or fatigue they experienced. Unlike most adult Covid vaccine trials, which favor participants who regularly come into contact with people outside their households, Moderna had no instructions for us on changing our lifestyle. So life returned to distance learning and socially-distant ski practice.
Then, on Day 7, my phone buzzed with a text from a friend whose son had participated in the trial the same day we had: “So, Zach has a rash around his injection site.”
I pushed aside my instinctive jealousy (we had promised to remain friends even if one of our families got stuck with the placebo). The next evening, I heard some excitement upstairs that made me set aside my book: Wes had discovered a similar red splotch on his arm. We measured the rash to report to our coordinator.
Even if it turns out that one or both of my kids got the saltwater placebo, which is given to one third of the participants in the teen trial, none of us will regret signing up.
The New York Times
