Study: Older Adults May Be Excluded From Many COVID-19 Trials

A study in JAMA Internal Medicine suggested more than half of all clinical trials of vaccines and potential treatments for COVID-19 are "at high risk for excluding older adults," reports United Press International . Moreover, 23 percent of the 847 trials reviewed had an age "cutoff" that would exclude adults 65 to 80 years old. Just 30 percent of the trials had no aged-based exclusion criteria. Fifty-three percent of the trials had either age-based exclusions or exclusions "preferentially affecting older adults," which placed them at "high risk for excluding older adults." "Older adults, particularly those in their 70s and 80s, may be systematically excluded from the clinical trials necessary to develop and test COVID-19 vaccines and treatments," warned Sharon Inouye at the Marcus Institute for Aging Research's Aging Brain Center. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans 60 and older accounted for less than 20 percent of new COVID-19 cases across the country in August, attributed to improved prevention measures. Yet Inouye said adults 65 and older have comprised roughly 40 percent of those hospitalized and 80 percent of those who die from COVID-19. "My biggest concern is that without clinical trial testing, older adults will ultimately be denied treatments and vaccines — as a result, equitable distribution to this population will not be possible, and this will be an egregious oversight," Inouye said.