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Good for Russia: taking steps towards allowing free & consenting adults the ability to use an experimental vaccine at their own risk, should they consent to do

Good for Russia: taking steps towards allowing free & consenting adults the ability to use an experimental vaccine at their own risk, should they consent to do so, and with the potential to generate massive positive externalities for the rest of the world in the process. How cringe is it that Russia (of all places) has beat the U.S. in allowing their population the right to access new technology? Literally hundreds of thousands of people have died during this pandemic, and our regulatory agencies have -- in the name of "protecting us" -- literally blocked off people from being able to experiment (on their own property) with ways to prevent the spread of more mass death. Unbelievable. Not to mention the tail risk of bottlenecking a life-saving vaccine until a government agency deems it "safe", and then suddenly releasing it all at once to massive portions of the population. If instead you let early risk-takers experiment on their own watch, you get orders of magnitude more data to work with gradually as opposed to suddenly unleashing a single vaccine (deemed "safe" by the FDA) to tends of millions of people at once.

postpawl 6y ago
Hasn’t one of the major vaccine candidates failed out of the trails already?
- jccooper 6y ago
  Perhaps you're thinking of the pause in the AstraZeneca Phase 3 trial. That's common and it has resumed. So, in that case, no.
- brendoelfrendo 6y ago
  Yes, AstraZeneca's trial was put on hold after a case of transverse myelitis. Obviously, in a large trial there's a chance the illness was unrelated to the vaccine, but this is one of those reasons why trials exist.
  - codeulike 6y ago
    And now it has resumed
CGamesPlay 6y ago
Eh, if this turns out to be the next Theranos, then we'll be glad that the government stopped our innocent civilians from being duped by this trickery. It's kind of a double-edged sword.
- georgewsinger 6y ago
  Are you glad that 1M people have died from coronavirus? Or are you capable of accepting that there is a trade-off between preventing people from receiving life-saving vaccines in the name of protecting them (Type 2 errors) versus letting people die of toxic vaccines that are allowed onto the market (Type 1 errors)? In this context, it's very hard for Type 1 errors to exponentially compound. However, I have 1M coffins worth of evidence that Type 2 errors do exponentially compound. But more importantly: why do you think you have the right to tell another adult what they can and cannot do with their own body? No one is forcing you to take an experimental vaccine from a potential Theranos. So why stop others from taking that risk, especially when (i) allowing them to do so has positive effects on those who choose not to take the vaccine and (ii) preventing them from doing so potentially robs millions of people the chance to live, if only they had access to a vaccine quicker?
  - CGamesPlay 6y ago
    This is what snake oil scams are. They make you think that it's a cure, when in reality it doesn't matter to the salesman whether it is or isn't. If the scammer happens upon the cure for COVID, that's lucky for them, but that isn't their goal. That's why we have regulatory agencies (who theoretically don't have a profit incentive to push false narratives) that control the trial periods. The unfortunate reality is that people who are affected by the (very real!) fear of becoming infected, disabled, or killed by the virus might make decisions about risks which they haven't been informed. In this case, for example, there may be a risk that there are downsides and absolutely no upside. That's what the testing periods are for. Please keep in mind I'm not talking about this specific instance. Here is looks like it's mostly political puffery and the vaccine is going through trials as it should.
- anon9001 6y ago
ishcheklein 6y ago
The biggest risk to my mind here is that if something bad (long term effects) happen to people taking this vaccine it might become an argument that anti-vaccine folks will market all over the globe. We can get actual vaccination slow down.
offsign 6y ago
Here's how someone in the field recently explained it to me... Let's say you have a vaccine that appears effective (great, right?) You give it to 1000 willing test subjects, and most become immune (fantastic, right?). Then, three to six months later 50 of the subjects go into terminal liver failure due to their body's immune response to the vaccine (as determined by their genetics.) It's not just whether a vaccine 'works' for you, it's whether it's effective AND safe over the huge genetic pool that is humanity (as measured over a sufficient period of time). This kind of stuff comes up all the time with drug trials, and it's why there's a process, and things can't be rushed.
- gman83 6y ago
  Yeah and just imagine how the anti-vax conspiracy crowd would respond in that situation. Things would get really crazy really fast. Even in a pandemic we can't rush this.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Well, in this pandemic we don't need to rush this as mortality is relatively low. If it were a variant Ebola, but with the same transmission rate as Covid19 then we'd sure was hell be rushing it.
    - CaptainZapp 6y ago
      Your reply bugs me. Not yours personally, but especially in the US this attitude seems to be a very binary thing. You either die, or most people survive it and your chances of survival seem to be good. What this leaves out is all those nasty consequences observed, where Covid victims survive, but encounter all sorts of health issues. From kidney - to heart damage, up to funky things it may do to your brain. This leaves out the long timers[1], who survive it, but have massive health issues for month with no end in sight. I, for one, are really hell bent not to catch it and as a society there seems to be number of quite simple measures to avoid spread. Unfortunately even those, like masks, in my opinion a no brainer, get politicized. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/covid-19-coronavirus-longterm-symptoms-months/612679/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/covid-19-...
didibus 6y ago
I'm generally of that opinion, but I have read that it seems to be more complex then that. First off, there's a trust factor. If people start to hear about all these vaccines with side effects and misbehaving, it can cause people to fear and not trust the vaccines themselves, even when some that do work and are safe come out. Second, and this I am not sure of the validity, but I've seen claims that a bad vaccine could actually make it more difficult to later make a good vaccine. For example, it seems certain type of vaccine can only be used once, so if you've got a bad vaccine, the good vaccine wouldn't work on you anymore, etc.
Oricle 6y ago
Because Russians know who the enemy is, the Jews! They've been dealing with them for over 2000 yesra where the west let's them do what they want! Educate yourselves lol

postpawl 6y ago

Hasn’t one of the major vaccine candidates failed out of the trails already?

jccooper 6y ago
Perhaps you're thinking of the pause in the AstraZeneca Phase 3 trial. That's common and it has resumed. So, in that case, no.
brendoelfrendo 6y ago
Yes, AstraZeneca's trial was put on hold after a case of transverse myelitis. Obviously, in a large trial there's a chance the illness was unrelated to the vaccine, but this is one of those reasons why trials exist.
- codeulike 6y ago
  And now it has resumed

CGamesPlay 6y ago

Eh, if this turns out to be the next Theranos, then we'll be glad that the government stopped our innocent civilians from being duped by this trickery. It's kind of a double-edged sword.

georgewsinger 6y ago
Are you glad that 1M people have died from coronavirus? Or are you capable of accepting that there is a trade-off between preventing people from receiving life-saving vaccines in the name of protecting them (Type 2 errors) versus letting people die of toxic vaccines that are allowed onto the market (Type 1 errors)? In this context, it's very hard for Type 1 errors to exponentially compound. However, I have 1M coffins worth of evidence that Type 2 errors do exponentially compound. But more importantly: why do you think you have the right to tell another adult what they can and cannot do with their own body? No one is forcing you to take an experimental vaccine from a potential Theranos. So why stop others from taking that risk, especially when (i) allowing them to do so has positive effects on those who choose not to take the vaccine and (ii) preventing them from doing so potentially robs millions of people the chance to live, if only they had access to a vaccine quicker?
- CGamesPlay 6y ago
  This is what snake oil scams are. They make you think that it's a cure, when in reality it doesn't matter to the salesman whether it is or isn't. If the scammer happens upon the cure for COVID, that's lucky for them, but that isn't their goal. That's why we have regulatory agencies (who theoretically don't have a profit incentive to push false narratives) that control the trial periods. The unfortunate reality is that people who are affected by the (very real!) fear of becoming infected, disabled, or killed by the virus might make decisions about risks which they haven't been informed. In this case, for example, there may be a risk that there are downsides and absolutely no upside. That's what the testing periods are for. Please keep in mind I'm not talking about this specific instance. Here is looks like it's mostly political puffery and the vaccine is going through trials as it should.
anon9001 6y ago

ishcheklein 6y ago

The biggest risk to my mind here is that if something bad (long term effects) happen to people taking this vaccine it might become an argument that anti-vaccine folks will market all over the globe. We can get actual vaccination slow down.

offsign 6y ago

Here's how someone in the field recently explained it to me... Let's say you have a vaccine that appears effective (great, right?) You give it to 1000 willing test subjects, and most become immune (fantastic, right?). Then, three to six months later 50 of the subjects go into terminal liver failure due to their body's immune response to the vaccine (as determined by their genetics.) It's not just whether a vaccine 'works' for you, it's whether it's effective AND safe over the huge genetic pool that is humanity (as measured over a sufficient period of time). This kind of stuff comes up all the time with drug trials, and it's why there's a process, and things can't be rushed.

gman83 6y ago
Yeah and just imagine how the anti-vax conspiracy crowd would respond in that situation. Things would get really crazy really fast. Even in a pandemic we can't rush this.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Well, in this pandemic we don't need to rush this as mortality is relatively low. If it were a variant Ebola, but with the same transmission rate as Covid19 then we'd sure was hell be rushing it.
  - CaptainZapp 6y ago
    Your reply bugs me. Not yours personally, but especially in the US this attitude seems to be a very binary thing. You either die, or most people survive it and your chances of survival seem to be good. What this leaves out is all those nasty consequences observed, where Covid victims survive, but encounter all sorts of health issues. From kidney - to heart damage, up to funky things it may do to your brain. This leaves out the long timers[1], who survive it, but have massive health issues for month with no end in sight. I, for one, are really hell bent not to catch it and as a society there seems to be number of quite simple measures to avoid spread. Unfortunately even those, like masks, in my opinion a no brainer, get politicized. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/covid-19-coronavirus-longterm-symptoms-months/612679/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/covid-19-...

didibus 6y ago

I'm generally of that opinion, but I have read that it seems to be more complex then that. First off, there's a trust factor. If people start to hear about all these vaccines with side effects and misbehaving, it can cause people to fear and not trust the vaccines themselves, even when some that do work and are safe come out. Second, and this I am not sure of the validity, but I've seen claims that a bad vaccine could actually make it more difficult to later make a good vaccine. For example, it seems certain type of vaccine can only be used once, so if you've got a bad vaccine, the good vaccine wouldn't work on you anymore, etc.

Oricle 6y ago

Because Russians know who the enemy is, the Jews! They've been dealing with them for over 2000 yesra where the west let's them do what they want! Educate yourselves lol