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Medicine

Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Starts Today (apnews.com) 127

The first participant in a clinical trial for a vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus will receive an experimental dose on Monday, Associated Press has reported. From the report: The National Institutes of Health is funding the trial, which is taking place at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. The official who disclosed plans for the first participant spoke on condition of anonymity because the move has not been publicly announced. Public health officials say it will take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine. Testing will begin with 45 young, healthy volunteers with different doses of shots co-developed by NIH and Moderna. There's no chance participants could get infected from the shots, because they don't contain the virus itself. The goal is purely to check that the vaccines show no worrisome side effects, setting the stage for larger tests.
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Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Starts Today

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  • Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. We need to bypass normal process, ask for non-violent offender volunteers from a prison population and test vaccine by intentionally infecting volunteers with COVID. Surviving volunteers, paid their debt to society in this way, get pardon and are released after trials and quarantine.
    • by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:11AM (#59835442)

      Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. We need to bypass normal process, ask for non-violent offender volunteers from a prison population and test vaccine by intentionally infecting volunteers with COVID. Surviving volunteers, paid their debt to society in this way, get pardon and are released after trials and quarantine.

      Why do that?

      As seriously panicked the population is here, I'm sure you will find a huge group of wiling volunteers lining up at the door to get the test vaccine, fully believing they are cheating death by being the first to get it.

      I'll bet you don't even need to pay anybody for taking the risk.

      • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

        Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. We need to bypass normal process, ask for non-violent offender volunteers from a prison population and test vaccine by intentionally infecting volunteers with COVID. Surviving volunteers, paid their debt to society in this way, get pardon and are released after trials and quarantine.

        Why do that?

        As seriously panicked the population is here, I'm sure you will find a huge group of wiling volunteers lining up at the door to get the test vaccine, fully believing they are cheating death by being the first to get it.

        I'll bet you don't even need to pay anybody for taking the risk.

        Ah yea, that's what the world needs right now: A failed, potentially harmful, rushed public trial of a vaccine for the Kim Kardashian of viruses.

    • Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. We need to bypass normal process, ask for non-violent offender volunteers from a prison population and test vaccine by intentionally infecting volunteers with COVID. Surviving volunteers, paid their debt to society in this way, get pardon and are released after trials and quarantine.

      There are likely plenty of people outside of prison who would volunteer especially if there was monetary compensation. Even without compensation, you would likely get plenty of volunteers. You would be helping society (or possibly an elderly relative) and if you are young your risk of dying are minimal and you are guaranteed good medical care which reduced your risk even further.

    • OMG people are getting a nasty flu! Quick, let's discard every last vestige of being a civilized society and go full Nazi!!

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        I don't think you know your history very well. Look up Tuskegee syphilis experiment. It's an old US tradition to abuse those who are powerless.

        P.S.: The US isn't the only place with this kind of thing in its history. I'm sure your own country has examples. The Nazis were just recent and a bit more extreme than usual. There have been worse. Consider the Mongols.

      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        A nasty flu, like the Spanish flu of 1918 I presume you mean.

        This corona virus is easily 50x more deadly than seasonal flu, the big problem with it is that about 10% of people with it need critical care which is a very finite resource.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yes, let's devolve into measures only a totalitarian state would resort to and thus show our Constitution is meaningless.

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        For the Feds to do it would, indeed, seem to me to violate the Constitution. For some state to do it would not, and neither would the feds encouraging, perhaps with funding, a state doing it. (Well, actually I think it would, if the Constitution were interpreted with anything approaching accuracy, but it falls within the traditions Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution.)

    • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      O_o

      So, release violent offenders!

      Doesn't seem like a great plan to me.

    • ask for non-violent offender volunteers from a prison population and test vaccine by intentionally infecting volunteers with COVID. Surviving volunteers, paid their debt to society in this way, get pardon and are released after trials and quarantine.

      This has got to be the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard. The world has a shortage of a lot of things, but drug trial volunteers are not one of them.

  • Thank god (Score:1, Flamebait)

    Thank god for big pharma companies like Moderna.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Thank god for big pharma companies like Moderna.

      I wonder if Moderna took a deal like the one Trump offered to German company CureVac. Basically he offered them a "large sum of money" (to quote the reports, no dollar figure was given) for access to a Covid-19 vaccine under development, with the caveat that it would be for US use only.

      • Re:Thank god (Score:5, Informative)

        by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:42AM (#59835276) Homepage Journal

        More lies. From CureVac themselves: "To make it clear again on coronavirus: CureVac has not received from the US government or related entities an offer before, during and since the Task Force meeting in the White House on March 2. CureVac rejects all allegations from press."
         
        This site is full of shitheads, and you are one of them.

        • by sycodon ( 149926 )

          If I only had Mod Points, you'd be at +5

          • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

            Yeah well don't worry I will be modded to oblivion. But I am calling out the shitheads until then.

        • Just like that Google cockup the media put out the other day.

          You know it's bad when companies like Google that despise Trump are issuing press releases supporting him and calling the media out as fake news.

          • Re:Thank god (Score:4, Informative)

            by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:18AM (#59835490)

            Just like that Google cockup the media put out the other day.

            You know it's bad when companies like Google that despise Trump are issuing press releases supporting him and calling the media out as fake news.

            Nothing Google put out really supported Trump. Google itself is making an informational only website, while an Alphabet subsidiary is making a trial website for the Bay Area only (that only directs to 2 testing centers).

            To be fair, I think someone told Trump that Google was working on these 2 things and, since in his mind everything has to be bigger and better and grandiose, he exaggerated it into "Google has 1700 programmers working on this testing website that will be out in 2 days". Whether it was a willful inflation or not is anyone's guess, but it's just one more clue into how the mind and administration of Trump functions.

          • Not only Google. CNN was one of the few who reported that the whole CureVac thing was false: https://edition.cnn.com/world/... [cnn.com]

            Strange times.

            • by geekoid ( 135745 )

              Why wouldn't they? the GERMAN GOVERNMENT was making the claim.

              The real test hers is who didn't report what a major country was saying? would that me fox news? hmmm.
              CNN also immediately reported when CureVac denied it.

              You idiots who have n idea how journalism works are pathetic pieces of shit you are helping rip this country apart.

          • by geekoid ( 135745 )

            Man, you trumpanzees grasping at straws is pretty pathetic.

        • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

          More lies. From CureVac themselves: "To make it clear again on coronavirus: CureVac has not received from the US government or related entities an offer before, during and since the Task Force meeting in the White House on March 2. CureVac rejects all allegations from press."

          This site is full of shitheads, and you are one of them.

          What is interesting is that the CEO of CureVac (who did meet with Trump) suddenly left the company a couple days ago with no announcement or explanation.

          Also, it appears both the German Heath Ministry and major investors of CureVac seemed to believe the reports of the offer were genuine. So there's one of two likely possibilities here: one was that Trump actually did try to make an offer, whether to CureVac or to Menichella himself; the second is that there was no offer but Trump's actions as president to

          • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            he would try to buy exclusive access to a vaccine which would be morally reprehensible.

            Morally reprehensible? Really? You know there is no chance a vaccine can be manufacture in large enough quantities on short notice for everyone at least not without impacting the manufacture of other badly needed vaccines and drugs. It probably can't even be produced and distributed in large enough quantity to cover at-risk populations. So trying make sure at least Americans have access to enough dosages to protect ourselves seems to me like something POTUS SHOULD BE DOING.

            His job is the security and genera

            • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

              His job is the security and general welfare of the USA and its Citizens, he is obligated to place that priority first.

              That is true. So, in the hypothetical situation where there is an ability to offer a huge sum of money, the correct course of action would be to make that offer, but for a licence, and allow your own domestic pharmaceutical and biomedical companies produce the vaccine for domestic consumption. This ensures that as many doses of the vaccine are available for your own population without preventing access for other states. There should be no actual, physical limitation that only the initial company could ma

            • by geekoid ( 135745 )

              No, he should not.
              What he SHOULD be doing is ramping up and putting into a place a quick means of manufacture and distribution so when one became available, we can hit the ground running.

              Have sole access is irrelevant without that.
              He does not know how any of this works.
              It isn't a piece of land, it's chemical information that can be distributed to many countries and be manufactured in many places at once.

              "His job is the security and general welfare of the USA and its Citizens,"
              well, no. His job is to be in

            • You know there is no chance a vaccine can be manufacture in large enough quantities on short notice for everyone at least not without impacting the manufacture of other badly needed vaccines and drugs
              Fabricating a vaccine is one of the most simplest things in the world. Yes, in a week or so you can produce enough to vaccine everyone ....
              Finding it: that is the tricky part.

              Are you somehow brainwashed that vaccines need to be expensive or are "complicated"? A team of 10 figures how to tackle a certain virus i

            • by shess ( 31691 )

              he would try to buy exclusive access to a vaccine which would be morally reprehensible.

              Morally reprehensible? Really? You know there is no chance a vaccine can be manufacture in large enough quantities on short notice for everyone at least not without impacting the manufacture of other badly needed vaccines and drugs. It probably can't even be produced and distributed in large enough quantity to cover at-risk populations. So trying make sure at least Americans have access to enough dosages to protect ourselves seems to me like something POTUS SHOULD BE DOING.

              Let's say that in the first months, they'll only be able to manufacture a few million units. If you were thinking ONLY of the US, would it be better for those units to go to vaccinating only US citizens, or to vaccinating all front-line healthcare workers globally? Keep in mind that as of yet we've not managed to teach any virus to respect national borders.

          • What's it like to live in a permanent state of baseless yet hysterical outrage?

            • by geekoid ( 135745 )

              If you only response is to claim someones is hysterical and outraged, then you got nothing.

              What's it like to have nothing but false belief, attacks, and lies?

        • by geekoid ( 135745 )

          LOL. Literally the first incorrect thing you've been right about.
          so not 'more lies'.

          OOH, after the report, the German government got involved. After which CureVac, the administration change their story pretty rapidly.

          I don't know whats going on their, but I do know this administration can't be trusted, at all.

  • by samwichse ( 1056268 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:29AM (#59835216)

    Wow, the early posts on this article on Slashdot are pretty worrying. Rushing towards suspending our country's ethical foundation and removing human rights.

    I've known two people who actually did participate experimental vaccine studies. The pay was excellent (IIRC around $25k about 10 years ago), but they had to go back for blood tests twice a week for a year, and of course there were the risks of an untested vaccine. They volunteered and the product had undergone a long period of pre-trial testing for safety.

    • This is what narcissism brings. Assholes think they know everything because they earn six figures programming websites. These people need to go to fucking Mars with Musk.

    • by Sumguy2436 ( 6186944 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:36AM (#59835250)

      You're bribing vulnerable people into participating either way, whether it's money (i.e. using the poor as guinea pigs) or reduced sentences (i.e. using prisoners).

      If you want to be above all moral dilemmas you need anonymous, healthy, voluntary participants who do it for free. Maybe you'd need some more requirements I didn't think of off the top of my hat. Good luck.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        If it gave a chance I'd not get COVID-19, I'd do it, and I'm anonymous, healthy, and doing it voluntarily. I had SARS in the past, and don't want to spend a better part of a month coughing my lungs out. I know a lot of elderly people who would take the risk because they almost would certainly die from COVID-19.

        Bring it on. It may be experimental, but who cares... it is definitely a lot better than getting the disease.

        • You cannot take vulnerable people like the elderly. They'd get priority medical care (or care at all, if you look at where Italy is heading) which is a bribe as well. My point is if you want to be morally untouchable you cannot take anyone who might get anything out of it (money, freedom, health care, etc.). Of course if you do that you very quickly run out of candidates for your trials.
      • Why do they have to be voluntary? All countries used to send their youths to war and on one batted an eye. Some countries still do it today. Why can't we imagine to have mandatory participation in clinical trials as a civic duty, instead? I don't find it morally wrong; it is for the greater good.
        • Why can't we imagine to have mandatory participation in clinical trials as a civic duty, instead? I don't find it morally wrong; it is for the greater good.

          So, I assume you have already volunteered to test this new vaccine? It is, after all, for a greater good, and a civic duty....

          Or do you think it's only a civic duty for OTHER people?

          • I do not advocate volunteering for it. I advocate my country telling me (and everyone else) that it is mandatory. That is a completely different thing. You don't volunteer to pay taxes, do you?
      • If you want to be above all moral dilemmas you need anonymous, healthy, voluntary participants who do it for free.

        No you don't. There's nothing immoral about exchanging a service for money. If anything it would be immoral to put something through a risk and expect them to receive nothing in return.
        However that is no where near as immoral as buying your way out of a prison sentence. By comparing the two you have directly put a price on sentence reduction, and comparing that to simply being paid to undergo a trial is absurd.

    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      25k isn't excellent money, even 10 years ago.

      • Above and on top of my job? That's pretty good money. I was tempted back then. Now I've got kids at home, so it'd be tough to go to the lab 2x/week before work.

  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:47AM (#59835300)

    On one hand, they are deadly afraid of vaccines.
    On the other hand, they are deadly afraid of Corona.
    That's how you get* a split personality disorder. XD

    It reminds me of the US dropping US flags with a picture of Kim-Yong Il over North Korea... (They are brainwashed to treat US flags as poison, not touch them, and not pick them up. But also to treat their dear leader like a god, pick up things depicting him with both hands and treat them with the utmost care and respect. .. Yes, it was cruel, ... but also funny. :)

    _ _ _
    * Of course it's not that simple. Don't worry, I know. Just enjoy the thought. :)

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      On one hand, they are deadly afraid of vaccines.
      On the other hand, they are deadly afraid of Corona.
      That's how you get* a split personality disorder. XD

      It reminds me of the US dropping US flags with a picture of Kim-Yong Il over North Korea... (They are brainwashed to treat US flags as poison, not touch them, and not pick them up. But also to treat their dear leader like a god, pick up things depicting him with both hands and treat them with the utmost care and respect. .. Yes, it was cruel, ... but also funny. :)

      _ _ _
      * Of course it's not that simple. Don't worry, I know. Just enjoy the thought. :)

      I liked the reports of Taiwan making masks with the Taiwanese flag printed on them for distribution in China.

    • The Anti-Vaxx'ers I know fully believe that this virus thing is all a hoax anyway. ALL of them...

      So they are not afraid of Corona, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Polio, Measles, you name it... They are all just the medical community lying to you in order to enable the "Big Pharma" companies to make wads of cash selling you shots that cause autism in your children because your doctor gets their cut too...

      Seriously.. These folks are crazy, at least the ones I know.

    • Hahaha. The year is 2037 and the internet will be full of “I don’t think the Coronavirus vaccine is necessary, it causes autism and no one I know or heard of has ever died of it”. My wife’s father had polio and has been unable to walk normally his entire life and now is completely disabled from it. The look on my friends kids when they ask how he hurt is legs is amazing, they are scared shitless of polio now. Without these living examples to scare people, a big part of humanity w
      • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @11:38AM (#59835930)

        Couldn't agree more.

        In my country, Germany, the Nazis re-emerged as soon as the old people died off, who had seen it first-hand.

        All hate in the world is caused by people being ignorant of other people, instead of talking to them.
        The key is, that you don't have to agree! But you don't have to hate them anymore either! Instead you can focus on solving the actual problem, without causing even more harm with irrational unwise reactions.

        I don't hate Nazis anymore. I get how they become Nazis. I cannot guarantee that I'd be better, given their life stories. They are mistreated kids. And I personally saw them being cured, simply by their lives getting better.
        Religious terrorists are the same thing.
        And in fact, in the vast majority of cases, it is just people being overwhelmed, scared and helpless.
        The offender needs help just as much as the victim. Only that way can you prevent future harm.

        So I choose to be a great and respecting person, to everyone evil and dumb that is just scared. Which is not always possible, due to my own triggers and being scared or overwhelmed and helpless. But I do what I can I can still be a dumb asshole on the Internet, until I grow out of it. ;)
        This is why you don't need to take anger online to hard. It's fine. I lost my train of thought ... :)

  • "...at the Kaiser Permanente..."

    We're all going to die.

  • The diameter of a typical virus is about 20 - 300 nanometers; Typical E. coli bacterium has a diameter of roughly 1000 nanometers; https://archive.vn/9b0Q0 [archive.vn]
  • Guilty I say! Throw the book at it!

  • Public health officials say it will take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine.

    because it takes additional studies of thousands of people to tell if a vaccine truly protects and does no harm

    I wonder if initials test go OK, will they allow limited use on the vulnerable elderly/afflicted populations? Most people under 50 aren't at high risk (and kids have nearly zero risk), but the elderly are dying at high rates. If the potential side effects are no worse than the virus itself (i.e., 'not dying'), and the worse case is that it doesn't work well, it seems it might be worth the risk to use it early.

    • by shess ( 31691 )

      Public health officials say it will take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine.

      because it takes additional studies of thousands of people to tell if a vaccine truly protects and does no harm

      I wonder if initials test go OK, will they allow limited use on the vulnerable elderly/afflicted populations? Most people under 50 aren't at high risk (and kids have nearly zero risk), but the elderly are dying at high rates. If the potential side effects are no worse than the virus itself (i.e., 'not dying'), and the worse case is that it doesn't work well, it seems it might be worth the risk to use it early.

      Why do you say that it seems worth the risk to use it early? I mean, what's the evidence?

      The reasons vaccines are generally safe is because we test the hell out of them before rolling them out to large populations. As it is, we're very likely to push this one into use with greatly reduced testing relative to past vaccines, and thus with increased risk of negative outcomes. If we push it too far, we risk harming a lot of people who otherwise might not have died, without saving anyone, which would set vacc

      • Why do you say that it seems worth the risk to use it early?

        It depends on what the 'possible side effects' are that they are testing for. If the possible side effects are constipation, diarrhea, headaches, etc. vs. a one-in-ten chance of people over 70 dying from Coronavirus, then we may deem it worth the risk to OFFER it to just those over 70. Now, if one of the possible unknown side effects is actually dying (or some debilitating condition), then it's not worth the risk.

        • by shess ( 31691 )

          Why do you say that it seems worth the risk to use it early?

          It depends on what the 'possible side effects' are that they are testing for. If the possible side effects are constipation, diarrhea, headaches, etc. vs. a one-in-ten chance of people over 70 dying from Coronavirus, then we may deem it worth the risk to OFFER it to just those over 70. Now, if one of the possible unknown side effects is actually dying (or some debilitating condition), then it's not worth the risk.

          Err, I don't think it works that way. I mean, I don't think they say "Hey, here's a possible vaccine, but I'm worried it causes constipation, could you check for that?" I think how it works is "Here's a possible vaccine, could you figure out if there are any nasty unexpected side effects?" You're putting something in your body which is supposed to impact your immune system function. It would sure be a bummer to let a bunch of people into a vaccination "You break it you own it" trial, only to find out th

          • I think how it works is "Here's a possible vaccine, could you figure out if there are any nasty unexpected side effects?

            Uh, yes that is how it works. That was stated in my post via a quote. It's WHAT possible side effects are they testing for that is the question and how severe are they. They have, after all, injected this stuff into live, healthy humans. I hope they are pretty sure it won't kill/maim them in some way.

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