Some scientists taking 'DIY inoculations' instead of waiting for COVID-19 vaccine

[sl8]

From https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/some-scientists-taking-diy-inoculations-instead-of-waiting-for-covid-19-vaccine-1.5121872

Some scientists taking 'DIY inoculations' instead of waiting for COVID-19 vaccine

Avis Favaro, Medical Correspondent
Elizabeth St. Philip
Brooklyn Neustaeter

Published Saturday, September 26, 2020 10:00PM EDT

TORONTO -- Nearly 200 COVID-19 vaccines are in development, and more than 60 of those are at various stages of human testing.

But for some, a vaccine isn’t coming soon enough, so they have taken to making their own and giving them to others – despite criticism that this could be dangerous for recipients and set back the entire vaccination movement.

Known as the “citizen science” vaccine initiative, some independent scientists, technologists and science enthusiasts are designing "do-it-yourself inoculations" against COVID-19. They say it is their only chance to become immune without waiting a year or more for a vaccine to be formally approved.

Preston Estep, an American biologist and co-founder of the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative (RaDVaC) in Boston, has created his own inhaled vaccine and is currently testing it on himself.

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[ProfessorGAC]

1. Seems Dumb

It's going to encourage people with very limited knowledge to try this.
And, since efficacy won't be testable without a large sample, including known exposures, it could lead to a false sense of security, leading to a exacerbation of spread.
They want to do this to themselves? Can't stop them. But, publicizing it is stupid.

[OneBro]

2. Self-writing disaster movie script.

This might be the original source for the article. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/29/1005720/george-church-diy-coronavirus-vaccine/

“Nearly 200 covid-19 vaccines are in development, and some three dozen are at various stages of human testing. But in what appears to be the first “citizen science” vaccine initiative, Estep and at least 20 other researchers, technologists, or science enthusiasts, many connected to Harvard University and MIT, have volunteered as lab rats for a do-it-yourself inoculation against the coronavirus. They say it’s their only chance to become immune without waiting a year or more for a vaccine to be formally approved.

Among those who’ve taken the DIY vaccine is George Church, the celebrity geneticist at Harvard University, who took two doses a week apart earlier this month. The doses were dropped in his mailbox, and he mixed the ingredients himself.

Church says he has not stepped outside of his house in five months, but he believes the vaccine designed by Estep, his former graduate student at Harvard and one of his protégés, is extremely safe. “I think we are at much bigger risk from covid considering how many ways you can get it, and how highly variable the consequences are,” he says.“

[Cosmo Blues]

3. They only call themselves scientists

But that's not how science works