Dr. Michael Kinch Discusses Russia's New COVID Vaccine & It's Safety
BOLDUAN: Breaking overnight, Vladimir Putin claims Russia has developed the world's first coronavirus vaccine. But it's coming before clinical trials are finished, and without releasing scientific data about it. Can it be trusted? CNN's Matthew Chance is in Moscow. Matthew, what don't know here?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's quite a revelation, the fact that Vladimir Putin has come out in the past couple hours and announced that he has approved or the country has approved the world's first vaccine against COVID-19. This is what he said. "It's gone through all the necessary checks. I know it's effective, and it forms stable immunity." He said that in a videoconference broadcast on Russia state television. This extraordinary revelation, Vladimir Putin said one of his own daughters has actually already been vaccinated. He said she had a slight heightened temperature for a while but now feels better. Of course, she's just one person. It doesn't take away the criticism that's been leveled at this vaccine by scientists all over the world. But those crucial phase three human trials, which usually involve thousands of people to assess the effectiveness and the safety of a vaccine like this simply have not even started yet before the approval of this vaccine. Nevertheless, the Russian Health Ministry says while those phase three trials are under way, they will still start vaccinating key workers, frontline medical workers, teachers, the elderly as well, people in those vulnerable categories. Russian Health Ministry saying it is a huge contribution this vaccine is to what they say is the victory over coronavirus. That, again, despite all those major concerns that are still out there -- Kate?</s>BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Matthew, thank you for those details. I really appreciate it. A lot of questions here. Joining me right now is Michael Kinch, director for drug development at Washington University in St. Louis, the author of "Between Hope and Fear: A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity." Thank you for being here. I think I likely can guess the answer, but I do want to ask you, from what you know of this vaccine touted by Russia, would take this vaccine?</s>MICHAEL KINCH, DIRECTOR FOR DRUG DEVELOPMENT, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY & AUTHOR: Well, we don't know much. And so would I take it? If my choices were that or nothing, perhaps. The little we know about this vaccine is that it is what's known as an adenovirus vaccine, it's using a virus that causes cold to deliver this vaccination. The problem is that somewhere between 30 percent and 60 percent of the people, the population in the U.S., Russia, and everywhere else, are resistant to this particular adenovirus. So the consequence is the vaccine may not work actually. And that can be truly dangerous because you might end up imparting a false sense of security for the people who received the vaccine. And that can be dangerous because they could resume risky blazers.</s>BOLDUAN: The WHO lists this vaccine candidate we're talking about as being in phase one. Even if it has wrapped phase two trials, at this point, in a critical trial, what do you know about the safety and what do you not know still?</s>KINCH: Pretty much all you know is that it's safe, kind of microscopically, the patient isn't showing distress or problems. You don't know whether you have immunity, that is what we call durable, that it's going to last a long time. Virtually any vaccine can trigger a short-term response. A long-term response is a complete unknown for this vaccine and for most of the vaccines being tested here and Europe.</s>BOLDUAN: This also highlights, it appears, the dangers and high stakes of an international race to be the first to find an effective vaccine. I mean, from your perspective, as you look at this, what are those stakes? What are the dangers that it brings with it?</s>KINCH: Well, the stakes are obviously very, very high because billions of lives could depend upon this. Unfortunately, you're going to have some, frankly, crack pots, like Putin, saying he knows that this works and that is not -- that is not science. Science is based on evidence. So the dangers are that either people in Russia or elsewhere either want to take this vaccine or compelled to take this vaccine. If this vaccine is useless, or lord forbid, if it causes toxicity, might cause inflammation or autoimmune disease, then you have a tremendously compounding problem. So it will be unprotected and potentially suffering side effects for a long time.</s>BOLDUAN: Look, just to put a fine point on it, without a phase three, which is these massive, broad trials in testing the safety and effectiveness, can a vaccine be trusted?</s>KINCH: I think you need the phase three because a phase three is, by definition, a very large trial with a lot of different people. That's going to cover many different age ranges, racial composition, past medical history. And that's the crucial thing. A phase one is oftentimes performed with healthy college students, for example, and that may not be representative either of the toxicity or the usefulness of a vaccine. So it's essential to have these phase three data because what you inject in a college student probably is very different than in an 80 something-year-old woman.</s>BOLDUAN: After listening to you now, I understand why Alex Azar said this morning the goal is not to be first necessarily but to get this right, especially when you have so many lives at stake. Michael, thank you for being here.</s>KINCH: Thank you.</s>BOLDUAN: Still up for us, Georgia's second-largest school district reopens Monday. It will be all online learning. Now some parents are protesting that. The school superintendent for Cobb County joins me next.