When the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new requirement for placebo testing on all new vaccines last week, the agency suggested the move would help protect consumers.

But medical experts and vaccine makers say wide application of the rule would be an unnecessary drain on time and money, while raising ethical questions by depriving some patients of safe vaccines that could protect them from disease.

Akiko Iwasaki, former president of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) and director of the Yale School of Medicine Center for Infection and Immunity, told The Hill “it's unethical to put people on a placebo arm when there is an existing vaccine for a trial like this.”

According to an HHS spokesperson, the rule announced last week means “all new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure — a radical departure from past practices.”

“Except for the COVID vaccine, none of the vaccines on the CDC’s [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] childhood recommended schedule was tested against an inert placebo, meaning we know very little about the actual risk profiles of these products,” the spokesperson added.

Experts have pushed back against this claim about vaccine testing, pointing to various double-blind studies for inoculations against MMR, polio and the flu, among others.

The details of how the HHS........

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