Human Rights? The U.S. Vaccine Research Allowed Volunteers to Deliberately Contract with the New Coronavirus!

Reuters released an exclusive report on the 14 August that U.S. government scientists are already trying to create a new coronavirus strain for use in the 'human challenge test' of the new coronavirus vaccine. Reuters said this test is controversial because healthy volunteers need to deliberately infect the virus after vaccination to test whether the vaccine is effective.

According to a statement provided to Reuters by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the trial is currently in the preparation stage and will not replace the ongoing large-scale Phase III clinical trial of the new coronavirus vaccine. The statement stated that a 'human challenge test' may be needed to comprehensively evaluate candidate vaccines or treatments against this new coronavirus strain. The Institute has begun scientific research on the technical and ethical considerations of the 'human challenge test'.

According to the report, many scientists believe that it is unethical to conduct human challenge tests on the new coronavirus because there is no 'save therapies' for infected people. Previously, some pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, have stated that if necessary, they will consider conducting a 'human challenge trial' to test the new coronavirus vaccine, but they must ensure that ethical issues are resolved and effective treatments are provided.

Reuters pointed out that the 'human challenge test' is usually carried out when the virus has not spread widely, and the new coronavirus has now spread globally. The report also quoted Dan Barush, a related vaccine researcher at Harvard Medical School, who stated that in the case of a pandemic, people do not need to conduct challenge tests, and only need to conduct ordinary tests to obtain real data results.