NIH devising study on rare allergic reactions to coronavirus vaccine
Officials at the National Institutes of Health are rushing to design a study to find out why people rarely have severe allergic reactions to the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. The goal is to determine which component of the vaccine is most likely to be responsible for these life-threatening incidents, known as anaphylaxis. No case has yet been linked to the other recently licensed vaccine, which is made by Moderna, but it is being given to the general public for the first time this week and contains ingredients similar to those developed by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech. This is a challenging task for researchers hoping to have an answer within weeks. The study will recruit volunteers with a history of severe allergic reactions who will receive the vaccine under close clinical supervision, according to Daniel Rotrosen, director of the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "This is not a simple study des