ABC News, Aug. 2020.. For now, perhaps the only way to know for sure whether the vaccine will work in the obese is to include them in large phase 3 trials -- the last step before authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
"It's important to enroll obese people, because they are likely to have associated chronic illnesses, and you really get to see if the vaccine helps those highly at-risk people," said Dr. Arthur L. Caplan, the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty professor of bioethics at the New York University Langone Medical Center.
Historically, obese people have been largely excluded from vaccine trials, because of these chronic illnesses, like diabetes and high blood pressure.
MORE: Coronavirus vaccine developers, however, are now attempting to combat this disparity by actively enrolling obese patients in their clinical trials.
"We think it's important to develop a vaccine that is going to work for everyone," said Laurens. "That's why we're trying to be as inclusive as possible in the phase 3 studies -- so that we can learn more about how to protect particularly the vulnerable populations, including the obese."
Nate Wood, M.D., is an internal medicine/primary care resident at Yale New Haven Hospital and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
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