Pharmaceutical companies will not market their coronavirus vaccines until they prove safe and effective in large clinical trials.
Top executives of nine large American and European companies that are currently developing such a vaccine write this in an open letter.
The document is envisioned to counter the perception that health risks are being taken to get a corona vaccine on the market as soon as possible.
The trust of the general public is necessary because a large proportion of people will have to use the tool to make it useful.
US President Donald Trump last month accused officials of the food and drug watchdog FDA of delaying testing of corona vaccines. His comment came after a top FDA official said he would resign if the government approves a vaccine before it has been proven to be effective.
Trump himself claims that a vaccine may already be ready for the US presidential election in November.
The progress of a vaccine takes years typically but is accelerated enormously in the case of the coronavirus. Leaders among drugmakers expect to see early results by the end of the year.
Pfizer, for example, has announced that it is expecting crucial test results in October.
In addition to Pfizer, companies such as AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi, among others, endorse the open letter. It is rare for competing companies to come forward with such a joint statement.
