The U of MN is starting testing with the Oxford Vaccine and my insurer is participating.
I might be eligible to participate as member of a high risk patient group. But, I don’t think I’m a preferred test rat because I’m isolating. They really want people who are likely to expose themselves to the virus so they can see if the vaccine has efficacy.
Would you guys participate if it rolls out in your area?
I think they are performing an evaluation here because they expect an explosion of covid cases soon.
I’ve heard discussion of this point on a podcast recently. Phase 3 of the virus trial is to administer the vaccine to 10’s of thousands or more people but to also give some people a placebo to create a control group. Then the trial administrators need to wait and see how many of the people who got the real vaccine versus the placebo in order to conclude whether the new vaccine is effective with large numbers of people.
A more direct way to challenge the vaccine effectiveness would be to vaccinate, then deliberately expose the vaccinated person to the virus. This, of course, would never pass an ethics test.
So that means that the trial must wait for the active group and the placebo group to naturally expose themselves to the virus. Conducting the trial in communities whose infection rate is high promises to bring the trial to a conclusive end sooner.
Seems like a weird proposition to me. You don’t want to encourage participants to engage in risky behavior but doing so would help hasten a conclusion that promises a breakthrough for community health.
The college age population, I suspect, will yield results quickly. There’s a hazard that a college student given the placebo might risk more social interaction thinking they have been given the actual vaccination. Tricky business!
Well yes it’s double blind. So you don’t know. But I don’t intend to change how I react to the world. I still wear a mask when around people and at work I have no choice.
I wouldn’t expose myself or get into my head that I’m immune.
That’s an idea to get double the chance of getting it, however I think they track you in some way so you can’t do that. And they tell you after the study is done , if it has a posetive result, they will offer it to the control group.
The only problem is the fact that these vaccines have been rushed through so there could be some negative side effects that have not been discovered.
Hey my parents gave me two names for a reason, Lol
Naw I would never try to fake something in a clinical trial. It is much to important. Now the safety of the vaccine, i am 63, so safety is like yeah today or in 25 years, not much difference in societal benefit. However my wife may have a different view. Depending the day of course
I’m not sure this happened because they were rushing the trial. Heck, clinical trials are done in part to determine if the vaccine is safe. If Astra hadn’t stopped the trial that would raise a red flag in my mind about moving too quickly.
