Posted on 02/19/2021 12:12:40 PM PST by nickcarraway
Britain became the first country in the world on Wednesday (Feb 16) to give the go-ahead for human challenge trials in which volunteers will deliberately be exposed to Covid-19 to advance research into the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The trial, due to start within a month, will see up to 90 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 30 exposed to the smallest amount of the virus needed to cause infection, scientists behind the plans told reporters at a news briefing. Volunteers will be screened for possible health risks before being allowed to take part, and kept in quarantine for close monitoring by medical staff for at least 14 days in a specialist unit at London’s Royal Free Hospital.
“The absolute priority, of course, is the safety of volunteers,” said Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, which is co-leading the project with the UK government’s vaccines task force and the clinical company hVIVO. “None of us wants to do this if there is any appreciable risk.”
(Excerpt) Read more at asiaone.com ...
Give me liberty (from vaccines, mask wearing, social distancing) or give me Covid.
This should have been done in USA in March to test the Zelenoko Protocol. Just as men volunteer for military, countless thousands would have volunteered to help our nation through such a test. And, yes, I deliberately used “men.”
they have just decided to remind the world.
so called british conservatives are to the left of bernie and aoc
austarlia, nz and canada are not far behind.
under pedo usurper biden US is desperately sprinting to catch up
Each volunteer will receive about $6,300 (£4,500) for taking part in this research.
I actually offered to become infected last March, firstly to give one of my children (she’s a doctor) some research material and secondly to come out of it stronger than ever.
See refused to hear any more about it - making it clear I was too old for such things. The payment would be useful though.
Your prime minister has kinda jumped the shark over there
They would not be doing this if the disease were as serious as the media made it out to be, i.e., like polio, smallpox, ebola, plague, etc.
Glad you approve of immoral and unethical testing. Good to know where you stand on the issue
Completely agree
Who would be against this?
1. Most people don’t get that sick
2. We could learn a lot about treatment
3. These people volunteered and will get paid.
I’m not understanding why people act as though these guys are signing up to get full blown AIDS.
I had covid. It’s not fun but what viruses are? I’m fine 3 months later. My kids had it with nary a symptom.
I was surprised to see this comment. (I’m usually impressed by your contributions here, and admire your stamina in facing down the nonsense fired at you!) I thought this kind of trial was standard, and compatible with medical ethics, in long-term research on pathogens, unless they’re already known to have inevitable irreversible effects? For instance, in the UK there was for decades a research programme on the common cold, which recruited paid volunteers who were infected and quarantined in exactly the way described here. Or is there a standard threshold of risk beyond which such trials would be considered unethical? You would obviously not use this for rabies, for example.
First of all thanks so much for your kind words. I genuinely appreciate it
In this case with the emergence of long hail disease in a subset of patients including the demographic they are trialing there is very real possibility of long term damage. This is escalates to ethically risky as there can be long term severe and debilitating disease. Because of the unknown variable I think it is ethically questionable to study the quantity of exposure required to get the disease. A challenge trial may be more ethically sound if you afford some protection to the subjects. For example, vaccinate then set a control on exposure to see if disease develops provided there is an adequate treatment (in this case I think a study could be designed with the salvage limb bejng monoclonal antibodies). But there is no protection for these subjects against chronic disease and there are real questions about long haul and post Covid symptoms.
As to the poster who opined that men should volunteer and only men is ethically unsound as a study needs to not exclude based on sex and race. If you study something only for men it is not extrapolated to women as at least for the moment most people on this site will agree with the truism that men are in fact different than women
I was being more critical of the proposed study design with a good deal of unease of a challenge study with this particular pathogen
Just my two cents. I understand there is plenty of room for disagreement on this question.
Thank you. That’s very clear. I had misinterpreted your comment as a universal condemnation of any research which involved the deliberate infection of healthy volunteers, but it’s clearly a lot more nuanced than that.
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