[HN Gopher] I was infected with Zika to test a vaccine
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       I was infected with Zika to test a vaccine
        
       Author : bswud
       Score  : 121 points
       Date   : 2024-02-20 13:40 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (worksinprogress.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (worksinprogress.co)
        
       | delichon wrote:
       | "Polio still persists in Taliban-controlled regions, after the
       | CIA ran a fake vaccination campaign to try to catch Osama bin
       | Laden. Vaccination workers are now killed as potential spies."
       | 
       | That sounds like an effective tactic if your goal is to cause
       | random wide scale death and misery. If it was actually only to
       | catch one man, it would be just for the people responsible to
       | become vaccine test subjects.
        
         | crakenzak wrote:
         | The CIA is one of the most wicked organizations I've ever heard
         | of. And that's just from the small amount of info we know about
         | them.
        
           | somenameforme wrote:
           | Think about the fact that this [1] only did not happen
           | because a single person intervened - just a single person
           | along the long line of custody from inception to proposal.
           | And the person who refused to let it happen was JFK.
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
        
             | NoGravitas wrote:
             | And look what happened to him.
        
               | westmeal wrote:
               | But it was TOTALLY not the CIA. There is NO WAY the CIA
               | could've done that.
        
             | lawn wrote:
             | Wow, I've somehow missed this.
        
               | jonhohle wrote:
               | I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, but The Devil's
               | Chessboard lays out a case for the CIA acting as the
               | military arm of the rich and powerful starting basically
               | at its inception. All of the "communist" overthrows in
               | the 50s and 60s happen to coincide with nationalist
               | leaders (often democratically elected) who want to keep
               | some of a country's resources from falling further into
               | the control of American corps. This typically resulted in
               | actual dictators replacing them that allowed the
               | businesses to continue to exploit while at the same time
               | severely oppressing the locals.
               | 
               | Some of the evidence is compelling, others is
               | speculative, but a lot of the same bad actors show up in
               | a lot of very similar global (and local) affairs.
        
               | masfuerte wrote:
               | Not just the CIA.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _nationalist leaders (often democratically elected) who
               | want to keep some of a country's resources from falling
               | further into the control of American corps_
               | 
               | This is an old geopolitical problem: rich democracies
               | tended to surround themselves with alliances of despots.
               | Athens, Rome and America. The corporate interests
               | hypothesis is interesting. But the resilient one is that
               | dictators reliably deliver foreign policy goals that
               | electeds' voters value.
        
               | petsfed wrote:
               | I'll add that book to my reading list.
               | 
               | I think, more broadly, that American, British, and French
               | "anti-communist" foreign policy has consistently been
               | about ensuring that American, British, and French
               | companies continue unfettered access to a colonized
               | nation's resources. Your actual governmental or economic
               | structure is irrelevant, so long as Shell Oil or United
               | Fruit Company are only answerable to their shareholders,
               | and not the people of the country they're exploiting.
               | 
               | Anti-communism, colonialism, nation-building, all these
               | justifications eventually become just rationalizations
               | for protecting _specifically_ the colonizer 's economic
               | interests. The Great Hunger, the Bengal Famine, the
               | Banana Massacre, the excesses of the regime of Mohammad
               | Reza Shah, the Mandate for Palestine, the Belgian fucking
               | Congo, all of these result from optimizing for foreign
               | economic interests without any regard for local social
               | interests.
        
               | pastacacioepepe wrote:
               | Loving how very based is this HN thread
        
             | diggan wrote:
             | Worth noting that while that those proposed self-inflicted
             | terrorist attacks were rejected, other terrorist attacks in
             | Cuba by CIA were approved:
             | 
             | > The Cuban Project, also known as Operation Mongoose, was
             | an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against
             | civilians, and covert operations, carried out by the U.S.
             | Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose
             | 
             | Whenever one falls down the CIA rabbit-hole, it never
             | continues surprise just how much pain they have inflicted
             | on the world.
        
             | instagib wrote:
             | The list of 'see also' on the site is a fun read. I never
             | read about the "fog of war" incident before related to the
             | Vietnam war inception which never happened.
             | 
             | https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
        
           | piva00 wrote:
           | The CIA absolutely fucked Latin America, staging coups,
           | pushing US businesses interests, putting military
           | dictatorships in power and assisting them while in power. The
           | damage runs deep and I think it's quite overwhelming hearing
           | from ignorant and/or naive Americans about the issues China
           | may cause, or the deaths that dictatorships brought into the
           | world.
           | 
           | The misery inflicted into generations of the peoples found
           | under the thumb of Uncle Sam's is almost unimaginable, it's
           | all under wraps though, since winners write history the US is
           | not currently seen as one of the major sources of instability
           | and social strife in so many countries it involved itself in.
           | 
           | When Americans look at Latin America and see the mess it
           | exists in there's no self-reflection about their part in
           | causing it. American needs trumped over all the rights to
           | self-determination of these peoples, be it assisting United
           | Fruit Company to destroy Guatemala, the dictatorships in
           | Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, etc. And all the aftermath of
           | the USA forcing countries in its "sphere of influence" to
           | abide by what the USA wanted, if you attempted to go out of
           | line there'd be a CIA team taking your government down in no
           | time.
           | 
           | It's just wishful thinking but I wish to see the USA
           | reckoning with all the misery it caused in my lifetime. It's
           | personal to me since one of my relatives was killed during
           | the Brazilian dictatorship, he was simply trying to be an
           | active part of an union.
        
             | ribosometronome wrote:
             | >issues China may cause ...The misery inflicted into
             | generations of the peoples found under the thumb of Uncle
             | Sam's is almost unimaginable, it's all under wraps though
             | 
             | Under wraps, and yet here you are talking about it on an
             | American website, seemingly without much fear of
             | repercussions or being censored for it. Is it as easy or
             | welcome to talk about Chinese committed atrocities on
             | Chinese websites?
        
               | piva00 wrote:
               | Under wraps from general American society, yes. Go right
               | now on the streets of your USA city and ask about the
               | atrocities the USA has committed in Latin America, check
               | what % of the people even know about that.
               | 
               | My comment about China is meant more in relation to the
               | boogeyman created out of China to push USA's interests, I
               | don't condone authoritarianism at all (it should be
               | pretty clear after I mention a dead relative by the hands
               | of a dictatorship) but I do have very high reservations
               | about whatever the USA pushes for manufacturing consent
               | across the globe, right now it's the China boogeyman.
               | 
               | The whole play of the USA is also to keep the veil of a
               | freedoms' paragon as a misdirection for its
               | transgressions, it's layered in misdirection using
               | language such as "defense of freedom", "free market",
               | "business interests" while behaving schizophrenically by
               | supporting dictators who align to its interests (e.g.:
               | Saudi Arabia, multiple dictatorships in Latin America).
               | It's all bullshit. Owning that it's all bullshit won't
               | ever happen, it needs to keep the discourse to keep the
               | facade of a force for good.
               | 
               | At least China is more honest, they are dicks, they are
               | ruthless, they can be aggressive, but no one else was
               | misled to believe otherwise. That's not the case with the
               | USA.
               | 
               | And my rant over your "whatabout" point ends here.
        
               | petsfed wrote:
               | The fact that I can freely discuss the fact that my
               | government installs and supports (occasionally very
               | directly) brutally anti-democratic regimes that stand in
               | complete opposition to everything my country claims to
               | stand for, does not somehow negate the fact that my
               | country is doing those things. This isn't a question of
               | "is the US better/worse than China/Russia/etc?". The
               | question is "Is the US living up to its own legend?"
               | 
               | I would argue that, based on the activities of the CIA
               | and other arms of the government, the answer is
               | unambiguously "NO".
               | 
               | I understand that one of the key ways that e.g. Putin
               | remains acceptable to his population despite being
               | unambiguously a strongman is to basically say "I am no
               | better than any of them, except that I never said I would
               | be".
        
           | BobaFloutist wrote:
           | The CIA has definitely committed some pretty heinous acts,
           | but the only reason they appear worse than your average
           | national intelligence service is that the US has a habit of
           | declassifying operations and documents after they're no
           | longer active and/or relevant, forcing them to confess to a
           | subset of their crimes. Most national intelligence services
           | are allowed to freely and happily cover up the vast majority
           | of their crimes indefinitely, and there's much less
           | opportunity to hold them accountable unless they actually get
           | caught.
        
           | tootie wrote:
           | The CIA is the covert agency of American foreign policy. They
           | don't act independently.
        
         | aqme28 wrote:
         | "The distrust sowed by the sham campaign in Pakistan could
         | conceivably postpone polio eradication for 20 years, leading to
         | 100,000 more cases that might otherwise not have occurred"
         | 
         | Doesn't really make sense to measure tragedies in terms of
         | 9/11s, but I wonder how many 9/11s the US has caused in the
         | name of killing Bin Laden.
        
           | deepsun wrote:
           | Or prevented.
        
           | samatman wrote:
           | That estimate is pretty insane. There were 374 polio cases in
           | 2023, six of which were in Pakistan. Half were in DR Congo,
           | where I don't believe the mission to find bin Laden has
           | affected eradication efforts.
           | 
           | Twenty more years of that rate would be 7,480 cases, not
           | 100,000. It's also risible to suggest that any of that
           | nonsense has seriously hindered eradication, caseloads in
           | that region remain very low, the hotspots are elsewhere.
           | 
           | https://www.who.int/news/item/22-12-2023-statement-
           | following...).
        
             | boomboomsubban wrote:
             | While I don't know where the 100,000 number comes from, I
             | believe most of the cases that occur outside Pakistan and
             | Afghanistan are caused by the vaccine. Wikipedia lists
             | those two countries as the only place polio is still
             | endemic.
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_eradication#2023
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | > I believe
               | 
               | Why?
        
               | boomboomsubban wrote:
               | That's what Wikipedia says, and I have no reason to doubt
               | it?
               | 
               | We're fully aware the vaccine does cause some polio
               | infections, and the countries that are seeing cases are
               | still in the middle of their vaccination campaigns.
        
               | blippe wrote:
               | "What is vaccine-derived polio?
               | 
               | Oral polio vaccine (OPV) contains an attenuated
               | (weakened) vaccine-virus, activating an immune response
               | in the body. When a child is immunized with OPV, the
               | weakened vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine for a
               | limited period, thereby developing immunity by building
               | up antibodies. During this time, the vaccine-virus is
               | also excreted. In areas of inadequate sanitation, this
               | excreted vaccine-virus can spread in the immediate
               | community (and this can offer protection to other
               | children through 'passive' immunization), before
               | eventually dying out.
               | 
               | On rare occasions, if a population is seriously under-
               | immunized, an excreted vaccine-virus can continue to
               | circulate for an extended period of time. The longer it
               | is allowed to survive, the more genetic changes it
               | undergoes. In very rare instances, the vaccine-virus can
               | genetically change into a form that can paralyse - this
               | is what is known as a circulating vaccine-derived
               | poliovirus (cVDPV)."
               | 
               | - WHO
               | 
               | https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-
               | answers/item/pol...
        
               | zer00eyz wrote:
               | It's a fair statement and question.
               | 
               | Why is it so hard to get clear data on this topic.
               | 
               | Please show me clear data from reputable sources on all
               | of this. It would end a lot of the the vaccine
               | controversy.
               | 
               | Let's take something like tetanus boosters. They are
               | recommended once every 10 years not because you "need"
               | one per se but the cost and expense of running a trial
               | longer than that made it no longer worth the effort.
        
               | xkbarkar wrote:
               | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01953-7
        
               | dudeinjapan wrote:
               | > Why?
               | 
               | WHO
        
               | anonuser123456 wrote:
               | Note to people downvoting this (because maybe they think
               | it's anti-vaccine crankery). The attenuated polio virus
               | vaccine can cause polio. The reward far outweighs the
               | risk.
        
               | 6177c40f wrote:
               | Should also be noted that in 2016 the trivalent OPV was
               | replaced with a bivalent vaccine in an attempt to further
               | mitigate the risk [1]:
               | 
               | > Until 2015, over 90% of cVDPV cases were due to the
               | type 2 component in OPV. With the transmission of wild
               | poliovirus type 2 already successfully interrupted since
               | 1999, in April 2016 a switch was implemented from
               | trivalent OPV to bivalent OPV in routine immunization
               | programmes. The removal of the type 2 component of OPV is
               | associated with significant public health benefits,
               | including a reduction of the risk of cases of cVDPV2.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-
               | answers/item/pol...
        
               | laputan-machine wrote:
               | Also note that 'attuenated virus vaccine' means the oral
               | vaccine that is prevalent in the developing world, and
               | not the vaccine that, e.g. EU citizens get, I had to look
               | this up, as it is not obvious.
        
               | matthewmacleod wrote:
               | I'm not sure why you've been downvoted for this-maybe a
               | little skittishness after years of anti-vax nonsense--but
               | my understanding is also that you're completely correct
               | and the vast majority of polio infections are vaccine-
               | derived. The oral polio vaccine is (I think?) the only
               | widely-used vaccine where this is a risk, and it's well-
               | known.
        
               | laputan-machine wrote:
               | > I'm not sure why you've been downvoted for this-maybe a
               | little skittishness after years of anti-vax nonsense
               | 
               | A tangent, but isn't this a problem? We should welcome
               | skepticism, if we can easily refute it: no problem.
        
               | CodeWriter23 wrote:
               | Refute or Affirm with further research, not a PR
               | campaign.
        
               | meatmanek wrote:
               | It's worth noting that by eradicating Polio we can also
               | eradicate vaccine-derived polio, as we'd presumably stop
               | vaccinating people once the disease is eradicated, as we
               | did with smallpox.
        
             | sampo wrote:
             | > There were 374 polio cases in 2023
             | 
             | Wikipedia says polio is asymptomatic in 72% of cases, and
             | feels like a mild-ish flu in 24% of cases. So in total 96%
             | of cases are probably not detected at all.
        
             | mschuster91 wrote:
             | > It's also risible to suggest that any of that nonsense
             | has seriously hindered eradication, caseloads in that
             | region remain very low, the hotspots are elsewhere.
             | 
             | It has killed off trust in Western vaccination programs not
             | just in Pakistan but also in Africa and a whole other lot
             | of places. The ripple effects from that have been
             | _immense_...
             | 
             | There is a reason why the label "medical" should not be
             | abused. The US campaign against Bin Laden, Hamas using
             | hospitals to hide command centers and hostages or as a
             | shooting range, Israeli agents infiltrating a hospital to
             | execute suspected Hamas operatives, German police placing
             | Red Crosses on their medical vans [1]... the list of abuses
             | is long, and at least for war-related action international
             | agreements actually ban that kind of abuse - we're seeing
             | in Palestine right now why.
             | 
             | [1] https://www.l-iz.de/leben/faelle-
             | unfaelle/2021/12/ausgekreuz...
        
             | burkaman wrote:
             | The estimate is from 10 years ago, before the consequences
             | of the CIA campaign were known:
             | https://www.jstor.org/stable/26018167.
             | 
             | It's also an opinion piece and the estimate is not a direct
             | quote, so I'm wondering if they might have incorrectly
             | paraphrased what their source told them.
        
             | fred_is_fred wrote:
             | I wonder how long until it's endemic in states like
             | Wyoming, Texas, and South Dakota which have rapidly
             | declining vaccination rates.
        
             | JoshTko wrote:
             | Shouldn't the estimate apply to all vaccine hesitancy in
             | region as the hesitancy would not be limited to Polio
             | vaccines.
        
           | redder23 wrote:
           | Oh, it makes a hole lot of sense!
        
           | Keoro488 wrote:
           | Nobody cares about 9/11 today. How many millions did CIA
           | killed with fake vaccination campaigns recently!! Or they
           | just stopped because they are good guys now?!
        
         | vvvvvvvvvvvv wrote:
         | This is ridiculous and bordering on misinformation, polio was
         | already prevalent in AF before the 2014 revelation, in large
         | part BECAUSE of the talibans.
         | 
         | "In Afghanistan and Pakistan, fears that the vaccine contained
         | contraceptives were one reason given by the Taliban in issuing
         | fatwas against polio vaccination.[47][43][48]"
         | 
         | Even outside of that, the talibans would have shot those health
         | workers eventually like they did with the 9 year old girl that
         | wanted education, they do not like outsiders showing people
         | their environment can be better.
        
         | snakeyjake wrote:
         | >"Polio still persists in Taliban-controlled regions, after the
         | CIA ran a fake vaccination campaign to try to catch Osama bin
         | Laden. Vaccination workers are now killed as potential spies."
         | 
         | The connection is bullshit. Afghanistan has a long and proud
         | history of killing polio vaccination workers. Also, any other
         | aid worker. Especially women.
         | 
         | https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/analysis-attacks-ai...
         | (2008)
         | 
         | I was in Afghanistan for over two years over two deployments.
         | Outside of the cities Afghans:
         | 
         | 1. Don't know who Osama Bin Laden is.
         | 
         | 2. Don't know that he was killed.
         | 
         | 3. Don't know that the CIA ran a (not fake, real) vaccination
         | campaign to locate Bin Laden. Or what the CIA is for that
         | matter, or what or who the US is.
         | 
         | 4. Barely know that there is a central government, who runs it,
         | or what city is the capital.
         | 
         | They only know their local clan and the immediate local leader.
         | 
         | They're not running around scared of CIA agents they are scared
         | of all outsiders and any outsider who can provide relief or
         | comfort that the local leader cannot instantly becomes the
         | enemy of the local leader.
         | 
         | This is also true in Pakistan and several African nations.
        
           | joshuaissac wrote:
           | > Don't know that the CIA ran a (not fake, real) vaccination
           | campaign to locate Bin Laden.
           | 
           | This Lancet editorial suggests that the vaccination campaign
           | was fake: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/P
           | IIS0140-6...
           | 
           | This is the campaign that is usually referred to when people
           | talk about the fake vaccination campaign to locate bin Laden,
           | but it was conducted in Abottabad, Pakistan. Are you
           | referring to a different campaign that was conducted in
           | Afghanistan?
        
             | lukan wrote:
             | He is saying, there is not much difference between tribal
             | people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
        
           | whatshisface wrote:
           | I'm more than willing to believe what you say about the local
           | leaders, but the article you linked says aid workers were
           | being killed because the Taliban associated them with US
           | military reconstruction and the Karzai government.
        
             | snakeyjake wrote:
             | The reason will always change and always be irrelevant.
             | 
             | In the past (PRE CIA PROGRAM) in other countries it has
             | been that the foreign aid workers have been assassinated
             | because their program:
             | 
             | * is a sterilization conspiracy
             | 
             | * corrupts the young women hired and trained to locally
             | administer the vaccines
             | 
             | * was proselytizing and spying on the locals
             | 
             | And I don't fault them for thinking any of that just look
             | at the nutjobs in the west who ramble on about vaccines.
        
           | Dylan16807 wrote:
           | > (not fake, real) vaccination campaign
           | 
           | It was a fake campaign because they gave one out of three
           | doses and then left.
        
         | michaelmrose wrote:
         | Maybe you should assign some portion of the blame to the
         | murderous cultists who are killing medical professions and
         | consider the reason they are so worried about spies is that
         | they were celebrating, supporting, and hiding mass murderers.
        
       | d--b wrote:
       | Zika may also have oncologic effect on glioblastoma (most common
       | and deadly brain cancer). If I had glioblastoma, the first thing
       | I'd do is visit a zika infested area.
       | 
       | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10267364/
       | 
       | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7529292/
        
       | mat_epice wrote:
       | I've just come to realize from this article that human challenge
       | trials are really a form of trolley problem [1]. Is it more
       | ethical to "do nothing" and gather data from infections in the
       | wild, where many people are potentially harmed, or do you "throw
       | the switch" and infect a much smaller number deliberately to get
       | high quality data?
       | 
       | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
        
         | Symmetry wrote:
         | I think that most people would say that diverting the trolley
         | to where you, yourself, are tied up would be a moral but
         | supererogatory thing to do. But we still make it impossible to
         | do that because the relatives of the person who sacrifices
         | themselves might sue the institution that allows it.
        
         | Kronopath wrote:
         | Always has been.
         | 
         | Now picture what would have happened if we had been willing to
         | do challenge trials early on for COVID.
         | 
         | I encourage you to check out 1DaySooner, which the author
         | mentions at the beginning of the article:
         | https://www.1daysooner.org/
        
           | this_user wrote:
           | > Now picture what would have happened if we had been willing
           | to do challenge trials early on for COVID.
           | 
           | Nothing much most likely. The mRNA vaccines were designed
           | very rapidly after the virus itself had been sequenced. The
           | thing that took time was moving through the different trial
           | phases. Given that there was more than enough spread of the
           | virus in the wild, deliberately exposing people might have
           | shaved off a few weeks at most.
           | 
           | But the real bottleneck afterwards was production and roll-
           | out of the vaccines anyway. So realistically, challenge
           | trials would not have had any meaningful impact.
        
             | s1artibartfast wrote:
             | >The thing that took time was moving through the different
             | trial phases. Given that there was more than enough spread
             | of the virus in the wild, deliberately exposing people
             | might have shaved off a few weeks at most.
             | 
             | I dont think that is accurate. You can run a challenge
             | trial from exposure to outcome in weeks, whereas it takes
             | many months and tens of thousands of people to get enough
             | cases in the wild.
             | 
             | It may still be that production was the critical path, but
             | challenge trials are much faster.
        
           | Wowfunhappy wrote:
           | An issue with doing a COVID-19 challenge trial that I heard
           | from someone in this space at the time: Nobody actually knew
           | how much virus to administer. We weren't sure of the normal
           | quantity of COVID-19 a person typically inhales before
           | becoming sick.
           | 
           | A major argument in favor of a challenge trial was that, for
           | people who are young and otherwise healthy, COVID-19 isn't
           | particularly deadly. However, we don't know what would have
           | happened if we accidentally gave participants 10x the normal
           | dose of COVID.
        
             | s1artibartfast wrote:
             | >An issue with doing a COVID-19 challenge trial that I
             | heard from someone in this space at the time: Nobody
             | actually knew how much virus to administer. We weren't sure
             | of the normal quantity of COVID-19 a person typically
             | inhales before becoming sick.
             | 
             | I dont think that is accurate. You dont have to know the
             | actual viral quantity transmitted to create a
             | representative transmission event. That is to say, if you
             | know people can catch covid sitting side by side, that can
             | be your challenge.
             | 
             | Even if the scenario isn't perfect, you still know how many
             | people caught it vs placebo.
        
               | Wowfunhappy wrote:
               | Yes, but again: If you gave participants an ineffective
               | or placebo vaccine followed by 10+ times the normal dose
               | of COVID, how many of them would die?
               | 
               | If you're okay with potentially killing a majority of the
               | people in the trial, I suppose you could still get useful
               | data, but the ethics become significantly more
               | questionable IMO.
        
         | fasthands9 wrote:
         | It is also a tricky statistical problem.
         | 
         | Obviously the covid vaccine was an unprecedented effort, but do
         | remember reading how the high rate of infection in the US made
         | it statistically easier to test. Within a few months you could
         | observe the gap between the control and treated group.
         | 
         | With vaccines for things like cancer, that take decades to
         | develop and at a low rate, you need to wait a very long time
         | even if you have a large group.
        
         | jessriedel wrote:
         | It contains the tension between utilitarianism and the
         | deontological act/omission distinction that the trolley problem
         | is meant to isolate, but clinical trials are philosophically
         | _very_ different in that (1) the risks you cause during a trial
         | are statistical rather than leading reliably to death of any
         | one person, (2) trial participants can and are compensated for
         | this risk, and (above all) (3) the trial participants have
         | consented. In other words, there very little tension
         | /inconsistency in saying that throwing the trolley switch is
         | unethical but running human challenge trials is ethical.
        
         | Nifty3929 wrote:
         | Except that it's the person on the side track who controls the
         | switch.
         | 
         | People are not being forced into this (by the US at least).
        
           | beacon294 wrote:
           | The labor market (how to get money if you don't have enough)
           | creates a perverse incentive. I wonder if anyone has
           | reaearched the "volunteers" and their position in both labor
           | and wealth.
        
             | Nifty3929 wrote:
             | I wonder why I never hear this argument applied to
             | government spending in general. In non-authoritarian
             | countries, spending money is the primary means for the
             | government to inflict their will on the public, regardless
             | whether it will have a positive impact on society.
        
           | baby wrote:
           | they are being forced by statistics. It's a supply/demand
           | problem. If you get people in a bad economical situation and
           | then give them enough money you will get them to do your
           | thing. Just increase the amount of money until you get enough
           | people signing up.
        
       | thenerdhead wrote:
       | Hopefully once we map out more largely ignored human systems, we
       | can rely more on in silico studies.
       | 
       | https://www.humanimmunomeproject.org/
       | 
       | > For those we can't cure, we can treat symptoms. We may not be
       | able to remove the virus causing a cold from your system, but we
       | can give you painkillers for your headache, tissues for your
       | nose, or cough suppressant medicines. It's not an ideal solution,
       | but it is part of a realistic answer.
       | 
       | This is such a gamble. For example, I am one of the 1/10 of the
       | population who has Long COVID from an early infection prior to
       | vaccines thought no worse than a cold. There are also folks who
       | got vaccinated and experience the same syndrome I do. I would
       | never risk these odds to have to deal with over 3 years of
       | constant debilitating pain when I was a previously healthy 29
       | year old now pushing 32. At this rate, I will likely see 5 full
       | years of my life in a struggle before any treatment hits the
       | shelves given there are very few things that can "treat the
       | symptoms".
       | 
       | https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.09.23298266v...
       | 
       | > At the start of this piece, I said I wasn't fussed with the
       | risk. Looking back at this later, I'm supposed to call this
       | hubris. I still itch across most of my upper body. I'm
       | alternating acetaminophen and ibuprofen. As I edited this piece
       | weeks after the trial, I struggled with fatigue that made it
       | difficult to work. Being released from the hospital only to
       | develop worse symptoms is more than a little strange, but it did
       | mean being taken care of by my partner and eating homemade meals
       | at the worst moments, both of which I enjoyed. All in all,
       | though, I don't think it was hubris at all. The risks were
       | reasonable, the pay made up for the itch, and I think the benefit
       | to science doubly so.
       | 
       | Imagine if this were more debilitating like another illness
       | (ME/CFS, Long COVID, Cancer, etc). Would you seriously risk years
       | of your life for $5k? The only way I'd ever do this is as a
       | sacrifice to the good of humanity. But we all know that our
       | sacrifices aren't seen as anything further than a small paycheck
       | in the grand scheme of pushing science forward. That needs to
       | change and we need to devote more gratitude to people who are
       | participating. Give them actual funds to sustain their symptoms
       | with or find ways to dedicate their name towards the good of
       | science often.
        
         | appletrotter wrote:
         | https://www.factcheck.org/2023/12/scicheck-yale-preprint-rec...
        
           | thenerdhead wrote:
           | https://duke.mediasite.com/Mediasite/Play/ce2ecf77e1934b30aa.
           | ..
           | 
           | 51:53
           | 
           | https://www.science.org/content/article/rare-cases-
           | coronavir...
        
       | giantg2 wrote:
       | "I would receive no 'direct benefits' from the study - except for
       | $4,875 in cash."
       | 
       | They don't cover related medical treatment for adverse events?
        
         | captainkrtek wrote:
         | I believe not. I was part of a phase 1 clinical study for a
         | vaccine, and I recall asking a question along these lines. They
         | mentioned some medical care may be covered, but otherwise not.
         | This was a few years ago so I could be mistaken.
        
       | swozey wrote:
       | My vietnam vet dad, drafted, let the army knock all of his teeth
       | out + break his jaw so they could (test?|practice?) some new
       | orthodontia method to straighten GI teeth.
       | 
       | As someone who has spent a fortune on having pretty teeth I
       | absolutely would not be willing to have my jaw and teeth beaten
       | out of me and that fact always blows my mind. I have no idea what
       | the status of ortho care was back then but the rest of my family
       | have nice teeth without having chewed a grenade.
       | 
       | And he has had nonstop teeth/jaw issues since his service.
        
         | itsmemattchung wrote:
         | Damn, what combination of: an insane pain tolerance, high
         | levels of curiosity, big desire of beauty. I wonder how many
         | other people this procedure was tested on?
        
       | Magi604 wrote:
       | I used to work in my downtown and I would regularly run into a
       | guy who would push around an empty wheelchair most days. Some
       | days though he would be sitting in it. I asked him about it, and
       | he said he did drug and medicine trials, and some days he
       | couldn't walk because of them so he would need the wheelchair to
       | move around. No idea how truthful he was because I don't know how
       | that stuff works here in Canada (and this was years and years ago
       | too) but he came to mind after reading this article.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-02-20 23:01 UTC)