Older Adults Often Left Out of Clinical Trials for Vaccines

COVID-19 highlights the critical need to include older adults in vaccine trials since they are more vulnerable to the virus, yet they have been historically underrepresented in clinical trials for certain treatments, reports KJZZ News . University of Arizona College of Medicine Professor Shad Marvasti says medical research has been constrained to "middle aged white men," while more diverse inclusion efforts have been insufficient. "We're still falling way too short, in terms of our inclusion of not only black and brown Americans, but also older Americans," he says. Older adults can have more complex medical ailments, meaning their response to a vaccine could differ from that of a healthy 25-year-old. Marvasti warns that if certain populations are overlooked, researchers will lack a complete picture of the impact of a particular treatment. "The outcome is that you have unanticipated side effects that occur with those individuals," he says. "They tend to also have more complex, other medical conditions. Because older adults also tend to be on multiple medications, Marvasti adds that "we don't know the interactions that may occur with common medications and seniors or common chronic conditions among them."