Within a year of COVID-19 appearing in the UK, the seemingly unthinkable has happened: vaccines for it have started being administered to people across the country.
The first of the vaccines, developed by Pfizer/ BioNTech, was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as safe to use on 2 December 2020. This assessment was made, according to the MHRA’s chief executive Dr June Raine, after “a rigorous scientific assessment of all the available evidence of quality, safety and effectiveness.”
For some people, however, the news was too good to be true. A YouGov survey indicated that one in five British people (and 42 per cent of those aged between 25-49) say they’re unlikely to take the vaccine. The majority of those surveyed cite safety concerns as the reason for their reluctance.
COULD THE CORONAVIRUS VACCINE HAVE HIDDEN LONG-TERM EFFECTS?
With all coronavirus vaccines having been trialled for less than a year at this point, it’s true that their long-term effects are not completely understood. Yet scientists say it’s unfair to compare the vaccines to the likes of thalidomide. First sold in the UK in 1958, thalidomide – a drug marketed as a sedative and treatment for morning sickness – was found to cause major birth defects when taken by pregnant women, three years after it appeared on the market.
Denne historien er fra January 2021-utgaven av BBC Focus - Science & Technology.
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Denne historien er fra January 2021-utgaven av BBC Focus - Science & Technology.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Do We Finally Know How the Egyptian Pyramids Were Built? - A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...
A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...How the Egyptian pyramids were built has long been a mystery. Constructed as tombs for the pharaohs over 4,000 years ago, more than 100 of them remain. The largest one, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was originally 147m tall (482ft). It's made up of about 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing between 2.5 and 15 tonnes, and would have had to be transported to the building site and lifted into place with techniques available at the time. To put this into context, it's akin to lifting a double-decker London bus to the top of St Pauls Cathedral a few million times.
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