Show an ad over header. AMP  

AstraZeneca still aiming to complete vaccine by year-end, despite trial pause

10 September 2020
 Dan Ackermann

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot says the company is still aiming to complete development of its vaccine with the University of Oxford by the end of this year, despite pausing phase 3 trials due to a participant falling ill, Bloomberg reports.

The state of play: The person is suspected to be suffering from "neurological symptoms consistent with a rare but serious spinal inflammatory disorder called transverse myelitis," according to STAT News. It's not clear if the condition is related to the vaccine.

  • Speaking on a call to investors, Pascal could not say how long the trial will be paused for safety review.
  • Multiple COVID-19 vaccines have moved on to phase 3 trials, and AstraZeneca's remains a frontrunner.

Between the lines: It's "not uncommon at all" for clinical trials to be paused due to an ill patient, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday.

  • "We see this generally, for the most part, but you don't know until you investigate it — it's an adverse event that's related to something else that just happened to have occurred during the period of time that the clinical trial was on," he said on CBS News.
  • "But you can't presume that. You always make the presumption that it's due directly to the actual vaccine ... This is an example of the kind of thing that you do to make sure we're dealing with a product that's safe."

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.