Covid-19 roundup: Amid calls for trans­paren­cy, Mod­er­na re­leas­es full PhI­II pro­to­col; As­traZeneca tri­al halt thought to be 'con­firmed trans­verse myelitis,' per CNN

Promi­nent sci­en­tists, pub­lic health ex­perts and in­dus­try crit­ics have been call­ing for more trans­paren­cy from vac­cine mak­ers, in­clud­ing the re­lease of the com­pa­nies’ Phase III tri­al pro­to­cols. On Thurs­day, Mod­er­na be­came the first ma­jor de­vel­op­er to do so.

“It is usu­al­ly not what in­dus­try does,” CEO Stéphane Ban­cel told End­points News in an in­ter­view in ad­vance of their R&D day to­day. “But giv­en the need there is for the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty and the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty and the me­dia to un­der­stand how the vac­cine is be­ing de­vel­oped, to make sure peo­ple are con­fi­dent in the safe­ty of the process, in the gov­er­nance with sci­en­tif­ic in­de­pen­dence in the med­ical world and the like, we’re drop­ping to­mor­row the full pro­to­col. It is unredact­ed.”

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