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During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Sandra Quinn asked hundreds of Americans if they’d be willing to take a hypothetical vaccine that was authorized for emergency use but wasn’t formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Most were hesitant: Quinn, the senior associate director of the Maryland Center for Health Equity at the University of Maryland, found that only around 8 percent of people said that they’d definitely take the vaccine.
An emergency H1N1 vaccine never came to be, but the questions Quinn asked 10 years ago are back in the spotlight today, as pharmaceutical companies in the US and around the world fight to produce a coronavirus vaccine as quickly as possible. It’s a real possibility that the FDA could allow for…