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I'm not sure why you're being downvoted; this seems like a legitimate question to me. Pasting a comment I made in another thread here: > There are those that

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted; this seems like a legitimate question to me. Pasting a comment I made in another thread here: > There are those that argue even without a safer strain it is ethical under certain circumstances to still perform that sort of "challenge trial" though, where people are deliberately exposed. A number of conditions would have to be met, such as all volunteer participation of course, very clear explanation and demonstration of understanding, no financial incentive, etc. But a faster vaccine could save many more lives than would be risked in the trial, and the risk itself could be very low, given the trial participants would be monitored closely and would get excellent medical care. Also obviously it would be restricted to young, healthy people without pre-existing conditions. To me it seems like a solid argument that given all those conditions (and possibly others I haven't thought of or mentioned), such a trial should be allowed. My understanding is that there are many people preemptively volunteering to participate.

rswail 7y ago
I'm not an ethicist, but I would be wary of the people "preemptively volunteering". While the majority might have purely altruistic reasons, others could be dealing with mental illnesses that lead them to inappropriate action. In the same way that there are older people saying things like "I'm willing to take my chances so that young people's jobs/lives/economy aren't destroyed" there are highly likely to be people offering to be guinea pigs for reasons that should ethically exclude them. By lowering the risk to the absolute maximum level possible, as suggested by the OP, it could be possible to have a challenge trial within ethical boundaries. This is more than "oh regulation is about CYA and that's what's holding us up", this is about "we don't kill or injure people in medical research, even if others might be saved."
- tempestn 7y ago
  Certainly it would be necessary to ensure people are of sound mind and understand the risk they're taking. That said, if we're talking about young, healthy people volunteering, and given they will be monitored throughout the trial, I would guess their risk of death would be on the order of 1/1000, if not better. (Based on recent estimates of overall CFR on the order of 0.5% out of NYC and such.) That's not a risk I personally would want to take, but it's on the order of the risk people take when donating a kidney. (And of course for most people the process will be much less arduous than a kidney donation.) We consider that acceptable to save a single life, whereas a faster vaccine would save many. So my prior would be that most people volunteering for something like this are simply altruistic, similar to a kidney donor, rather than mentally ill.

rswail 7y ago

I'm not an ethicist, but I would be wary of the people "preemptively volunteering". While the majority might have purely altruistic reasons, others could be dealing with mental illnesses that lead them to inappropriate action. In the same way that there are older people saying things like "I'm willing to take my chances so that young people's jobs/lives/economy aren't destroyed" there are highly likely to be people offering to be guinea pigs for reasons that should ethically exclude them. By lowering the risk to the absolute maximum level possible, as suggested by the OP, it could be possible to have a challenge trial within ethical boundaries. This is more than "oh regulation is about CYA and that's what's holding us up", this is about "we don't kill or injure people in medical research, even if others might be saved."

tempestn 7y ago
Certainly it would be necessary to ensure people are of sound mind and understand the risk they're taking. That said, if we're talking about young, healthy people volunteering, and given they will be monitored throughout the trial, I would guess their risk of death would be on the order of 1/1000, if not better. (Based on recent estimates of overall CFR on the order of 0.5% out of NYC and such.) That's not a risk I personally would want to take, but it's on the order of the risk people take when donating a kidney. (And of course for most people the process will be much less arduous than a kidney donation.) We consider that acceptable to save a single life, whereas a faster vaccine would save many. So my prior would be that most people volunteering for something like this are simply altruistic, similar to a kidney donor, rather than mentally ill.