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Mixed messages about the vaccine has fed some of the inaccurate information floating around about the COVID-19 vaccine, but the public health community, regulators and the pharmaceutical companies are being as transparent and providing as much information to the public as they can, according to IU McKinney Professor Ross Silverman, in a story in the Indiana Lawyer.

“There has probably never been a more anticipated medical discovery than a COVID-19 vaccine,” Silverman said. “There are more eyes watching this process than almost anything that I’ve seen as far as sort of development of new interventions.”

Professor Silverman is a member of the Indiana Department of Health’s Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccine Allocation Plan Development Advisory Group.

“Lawyers are contributing in making sure that we’re lining up the science with issues of justice and equity while also trying to keep the process grounded in the reality of the logistics and what we understand about how the vaccine is going to be distributed, where’s it’s going to be distributed, etc.,” Silverman said

In regard to employer vaccine mandates, Professor Silverman is expecting the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will shy away from mandates and recommend that employers “strongly encourage” their employees to be vaccinated.

Professor Silverman is Professor Public Health and Law at IU McKinney and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI. His research interests include legal, ethical and policy issues in public health and medicine, professional school admissions, interdisciplinary curriculum development, medical humanities, human rights, and patient safety.