Who’s Jonesing to Inject Trump’s Miracle Vaccine?

Dick Polman on Sep 9, 2020

Here’s a pop quiz. Which of these rash acts is the stupidest?

a) Frying your hand in cooking oil

b) Breaking your thumb with a hammer

c) Swimming laps in a polluted river

d) Volunteering to be Donald Trump’s guinea pig

If you were nuts enough to do a, b, or c, at least you’d know what kinds of treatment would nurse you back to health. But signing up for a COVID-19 vaccine that’s been rushed to market because the Leader needs an electoral Hail Mary? Taking his word (of all people) that it’s safe and effective?

I’d sooner eat a defunct Trump Steak, get drunk on defunct Trump Vodka, or belt myself onto the defunct Trump Shuttle.

Trump is like the Pigpen character in the Peanuts strip, kicking up clouds of dirt wherever he goes. First he catastrophically botches the pandemic response - the latest models say that by the end of the year, 2,000 Americans will die each day - and now he’s meddling with the vaccine response every time he flaps his big yap.

The last thing we need, at this juncture, is to hear this grifter play politics with vaccine development. The last thing we need is for the public to lose faith in the science. But did we ever expect anything different?

The scientific consensus is that no safe, effective vaccine will be widely available until early next year or beyond. The crucial Phase III human trials are barely underway - for only three vaccine candidates - and there’s no guarantee that they’ll pass muster. (Stuff like this happens.) Even the guy who heads Trump’s grandly titled Operation Warp Speed told NPR the other day that the odds of a miracle cure by November is “very, very low…extremely unlikely.”

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