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(Adds Fauci quotes, background)
WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca Plc's
COVID-19 vaccine is likely very good, but an independent review
board was concerned about how the drugmaker presented data in a
press release this week, top U.S. health official Dr. Anthony
Fauci said on Tuesday.
"This is likely a very good vaccine," Fauci, U.S. President
Joe Biden's COVID-19 medical adviser and National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, told ABC News'
"Good Morning America" program. "If you look at it, the data
really are quite good but when they put it into the press
release it wasn't completely accurate."
A data and safety monitoring board "got concerned" that the
data in AstraZeneca's public statement "were somewhat outdated
and might in fact be misleading a bit," he added.
The board, a group of independent medical experts at the
National Institutes of Health, which includes NIAID, contacted
the company with their concerns about how the company laid out
its data in its press release issued on Monday, Fauci said.
He added that the back and forth was "unfortunate," calling
it "an unforced error" that only adds to public doubts about
vaccines and could possibly lead to more hesitancy.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which will review the
company's data when it seeks approval for its COVID-19 vaccine
in the United States, "will independently go over every bit of
data themselves" and not rely on any one interpretation,
including the company's, he added.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Andrew Heavens and
Carmel Crimmins)
