Human Challenge Trials

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John Clark

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May 8, 2020, 12:59:33 PM5/8/20
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If you want to do something drastic to end this virus nightmare there is something we could do that would be far more effective than waiting for herd immunity as well as being less ethically questionable, although I'm sure some would still clutch their pearls in horror, I'm referring to Human Challenge Trials. The idea is young healthy volunteers would be injected with a experimental vaccine (or a placebo) and then deliberately infected with the COVID-19 virus. This would dramatically speed up vaccine development and save many thousands, perhaps millions, of lives; not to mention stop the economy from collapsing into rubble. The death rate for young healthy people who get COVID-19 is only about 1.4 deaths per 10,000 and the death rate for those who volunteer as kidney donors is 3 times that, we accept one as being ethical why not the other?
As one ethicist put it:

"This is the trolley problem where the fat man wants to jump knowing his chance of death is below 1% and our decision is whether to stop him."



smit joshi

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May 9, 2020, 10:52:52 AM5/9/20
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This is a double edged sword. Initially UK in order to achieve herd immunity and clinical tests started infecting young people with corona virus, in the hope that after mild illness they will develop a resistance to it. However the due to high R0 value of COVID-19 virus(about 2 to 2.5) , there were unable to contain the spread and their hospitals overflowed with cases. Due to this they had to the changed their strategy, of gradual restriction, to mass quarantine damaging their economy.
However the point of kidney donors is worth thinking.

Bruno Marchal

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May 12, 2020, 7:51:07 AM5/12/20
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On 8 May 2020, at 18:58, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you want to do something drastic to end this virus nightmare there is something we could do that would be far more effective than waiting for herd immunity as well as being less ethically questionable, although I'm sure some would still clutch their pearls in horror, I'm referring to Human Challenge Trials. The idea is young healthy volunteers would be injected with a experimental vaccine (or a placebo) and then deliberately infected with the COVID-19 virus. This would dramatically speed up vaccine development and save many thousands, perhaps millions, of lives; not to mention stop the economy from collapsing into rubble. The death rate for young healthy people who get COVID-19 is only about 1.4 deaths per 10,000 and the death rate for those who volunteer as kidney donors is 3 times that, we accept one as being ethical why not the other?

I agree. In fact I think that a government has nothing to say about which medication or medical technic can be used. It is only you and your doctor or shaman who can decide, and evaluate their risk. The government can impose “warnings”, and impose the traceability of products, and many things, but not a treatment, nor any particular medication, at least in normal time. If people are OK to try a new medication, there is no problem, as long as they get the information right, including the possible lack of information. A government can impose medical prescription, though, but again, that must be debatable, and only the physicians should be able to provide informations if such a decision makes sense.

Can a government imposes a vaccine? Yes, but again, only if there is some regulating independent court to assess the need. If not, that becomes an easy way to make money on diseases, like “big-pharma” already does a lot (and that is a *big* current problem).

During a pandemic, a government can impose both vaccine and quarantine, but again, only if such decisions are well explained and limited in time. 

About all this, the following video makes me worry a lot:

"US makes 'big bet' on vaccine company that's never brought a vaccine to market":

It is so weird … that I am waiting for more information confirming this, but that is an example of what should never been done. It is like putting all eggs in the same basket which does not yet exist.

Bruno



As one ethicist put it:

"This is the trolley problem where the fat man wants to jump knowing his chance of death is below 1% and our decision is whether to stop him."




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Lawrence Crowell

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May 12, 2020, 9:29:49 AM5/12/20
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On Tuesday, May 12, 2020 at 6:51:07 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 8 May 2020, at 18:58, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you want to do something drastic to end this virus nightmare there is something we could do that would be far more effective than waiting for herd immunity as well as being less ethically questionable, although I'm sure some would still clutch their pearls in horror, I'm referring to Human Challenge Trials. The idea is young healthy volunteers would be injected with a experimental vaccine (or a placebo) and then deliberately infected with the COVID-19 virus. This would dramatically speed up vaccine development and save many thousands, perhaps millions, of lives; not to mention stop the economy from collapsing into rubble. The death rate for young healthy people who get COVID-19 is only about 1.4 deaths per 10,000 and the death rate for those who volunteer as kidney donors is 3 times that, we accept one as being ethical why not the other?

I agree. In fact I think that a government has nothing to say about which medication or medical technic can be used. It is only you and your doctor or shaman who can decide, and evaluate their risk. The government can impose “warnings”, and impose the traceability of products, and many things, but not a treatment, nor any particular medication, at least in normal time. If people are OK to try a new medication, there is no problem, as long as they get the information right, including the possible lack of information. A government can impose medical prescription, though, but again, that must be debatable, and only the physicians should be able to provide informations if such a decision makes sense.

Can a government imposes a vaccine? Yes, but again, only if there is some regulating independent court to assess the need. If not, that becomes an easy way to make money on diseases, like “big-pharma” already does a lot (and that is a *big* current problem).

During a pandemic, a government can impose both vaccine and quarantine, but again, only if such decisions are well explained and limited in time. 

About all this, the following video makes me worry a lot:

"US makes 'big bet' on vaccine company that's never brought a vaccine to market":

It is so weird … that I am waiting for more information confirming this, but that is an example of what should never been done. It is like putting all eggs in the same basket which does not yet exist.

Bruno


Donald t'Rump has no idea what he is doing. He even expresses confusion over what exactly a test does, where he has made statements suggesting he thinks it is preventative method. t'Rump operates by pure cronism, and his plugging of hydrochloriquine is because he bought a lot of stock in an company in India that makes this anti-malarial drug. It has to be mentioned that this sort of activity, buying stock and doing business, violates the emoluments clause of the Constitution. On top of it t'Rump has a hard time making words such as "and" and "the" truthful. Don-the-Con t'Rump has quite a cultish set of followers and it may require a serious damaging event to unseat him in the coming election. 

The idea of paying people for human trials to expedite the development of a vaccine is probably at least worth considering. Given all of these unemployed people out there a decent statistical sample space is possible, Also the emergency employment pool exists to do testing and contact tracing. There seems to be only tepid action along these lines. Reopening the economy would be better if it could be more micromanaged this way before a vaccine comes  In China, S, Korea and Germany the pandemic is already rebounding as they have opened up. In the US the same will occur in spades, and we have a clown for a President who has no clue about anything scientific.

LC
 


As one ethicist put it:

"This is the trolley problem where the fat man wants to jump knowing his chance of death is below 1% and our decision is whether to stop him."




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John Clark

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May 12, 2020, 10:10:04 AM5/12/20
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On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 9:29 AM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

> t'Rump has a hard time making words such as "and" and "the" truthful.

For Trump lying comes as naturally as breathing, if he said "hello" to me I wouldn't believe him.
 
> In China, S, Korea and Germany the pandemic is already rebounding as they have opened up.

South Korea reported its first case OF COVID-19 on January 20, the exact same day the US did, but unlike the US within 2 days they had developed their own test for the virus and started a massive program of testing. So as of today only 10,936 people in South Korea have gotten sick from the virus and 258 have died, but in the US 1,387,496 have gotten sick from the virus and 81,937 have died from it. And in the first quarter the GDP of South Korea declined by 1.4%, in the USA it declined by 4.8%. And today the unemployment rate in the US is 14.7%, in South Korea It's 3.8%.


> we have a clown for a President

I think you're being a little unfair to clowns, they make you want to laugh, this jackass makes you want to cry.

John K Clark

Lawrence Crowell

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May 12, 2020, 11:08:22 AM5/12/20
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In the end your final defense is humor. Jimmy Buffet got it right with, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

A friend in Brazil has given me a load of Bolsonaro, who is a magnified version of t'Rump, and fortunately in a country that is in far less power situation than the US. If there were to be a God these people are ways this God has of pulling tricks or jokes on us.


LC
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