My biggest fear surrounding Covid-19 is not the illness itself but the vaccine that is being rushed through testing, right this very moment. I've no doubt that this synthetic gumbo will be forced upon us, one way or another. I don't think we'll be injected at gunpoint(although I wouldn't put it past them) but I am certain there will be severe consequences if we don't roll up our sleeves and submit.
For me, vaccines are a strange one. On one hand I can see the obvious benefits, but, like always, where there is profit there will always be corruption and when it comes to medicine cutting corners can have devastating effects. Usually a vaccine would take, on average, 10-years to develop after going through various stages of testing, but it seems all these safeguarding protocols have been circumnavigated in order to save the world from coronavirus.
Earlier today I happened to tune in to a BBC4 radio broadcast titled;
The race is on for the world's scientists to develop a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine. The Inquiry examines how quickly this can be done and what hurdles need to be overcome to roll out a vaccine in 12-18 months, rather than the many years it would normally take.
Presented by Kavita Puri.
The broadcast begins with some eerie instrumental reminiscent of tubular bells, which I'm pretty sure is the soundtrack to horror movie, Jason. After a few seconds the presenter, Kavita Puri, opens with a dramatic description of a scientist who is working on a vaccine to fight Covid-19. She continues, telling how the world has been "brought to its knees" by Covid-19 and then begins interviewing the first of four experts. This 25-minute long investigation has been split into 4 parts with each part interviewing a different scientist/doctor.
Part 1 - The Valley of Death
Annelies Wilder-Smith, Prof of emerging infectious diseases at London school of hygiene and tropical medicine, is the first expert to be interviewed by Kavita Puri. Annelies begins by describing the stages a new vaccine must go through before being sold to the public. She explains that first of all the vaccine goes through preclinical trials, involving laboratory tests on animals. If these are successful the vaccine then goes on to human testing consisting of 3 phases.
Phase 1 involves the vaccine being tested on a small group, normally around 50 people.
Phase 2 begins testing on a larger group of people. Scientist are looking at how our antibodies react to the vaccine and to what extent.
phase 3 involves mass testing of around 20,000 to 30,000 people.
Because so many vaccines fail somewhere along this route it is referred to as "The valley of death".
When a vaccine passed all of this testing the company who produced it can then apply for a licence. After a licence is granted the product can be sold on the open market. According to Annelies, this process usually takes around 10-years to complete.
Kavita then asks the scientist; "Given how there is all this political will, there is no way, is there, that these phases can be fast-tracked?"
Annelies - "I think they are already fast-tracking as much as they can. There needs to be a good balance between speed and safety. "A perfect example of how fast-tracking can go wrong is the 1976 swine flu vaccine. America's president signed off a new vaccine for swine flu, one that had been rushed through testing. Only after it was administered to the general public did it become apparent that the vaccine caused a paralyzing side effect known as Guillain-Barre syndrome. This dreadful side-effect was missed during testing because phase 3 didn't include a large enough group of people."
(By the way, we will come back to the subject of this Swine flu vaccine in part-3, so please don't forget about what you've just read...)
Annelies states that only one company(Moderna Therapeutics) has, so far, gotten a vaccine through to human testing phase 1. In this BBC interview nothing else was mentioned about Moderna so I thought I would look them up myself...I'll let you make your own minds up, but given what we've just heard about fast-tracking the following information is far from reassuring...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — At first glance, Moderna Therapeutics looks like the most enviable biotech startup in the world. It has smashed fundraising records and teamed up with pharmaceutical giants as it pursues a radical plan to revolutionize medicine by transforming human cells into drug factories. But the reality is more complicated. A STAT investigation found that the company’s caustic work environment has for years driven away top talent and that behind its obsession with secrecy, there are signs Moderna has run into roadblocks with its most ambitious projects.
Part 2 - Ethicacy
According to Wikipedia, ethicacy in medicine has the following meaning;
In medicine, efficacy is the capacity for beneficial change (or therapeutic effect) of a given intervention (for example a drug, medical device, surgical procedure, or a public health intervention)
In part 2 Kavita interviews Doctor Sarah Coby, Associate Professor of ecology in evolution at the university of Chicago.
After the introducing, doctor Sarah gives an explanation of ethicacy and then enthusiastically describes the atmosphere she is presently working in;
Doctor Sarah - "I've never seen anything this urgent or coordinated. It's quite possible that some of the vaccines are going to be winnowed at this time, because either they are stimulating some kind of adverse response(side effect) or that they are not inducing a sufficient protective response. It's hard to know which horse to bet on at this point."
Kavita - "So, given the political will for an expedient vaccine, is there a sense that ethicacy standards might be relaxed, that it's better to have a vaccine that partially works rather than nothing at all?"
Doctor Sarah - "That would be a very rational response and I expect something like that to happen. Right now there is no vaccine to compare any of these candidates against. So, yes, I expect that the initial vaccines not to be the most effective as possible. Nevertheless, I hope they will get approved anyway if it helps speed up the distribution of vaccinations in the population."
As you can imagine, the profits generated from one vaccine would be tremendous and the thought of being able to buy enough time to produce multiple vaccines must have these agencies frothing at the bit. But let's not forget that there isn't a vaccine in the world that doesn't come with a disclaimer, just look at the current flu jabs that have a list of possible side effects. With this in mind and the fact that they are fast-tracking these new vaccines through the system, the odds of adverse effects are increasing dramatically. You will find out in part-4 that nobody wants to invest in a vaccine that's going to be shelved, so bringing anything onto the market is better than nothing. Somebody has got to pay the bills, right?
But sadly, as the Doctor is about to explain, the risk factor doesn't stop increasing there...
Doctor Sarah - "Scientists are using new techniques for the first time. The traditional method of injecting fragments of the virus to induce a response is being trialed as well as a number of revolutionary platforms, which include using the viral genetic sequence(DNA). This new class of vaccines are much more innovative and, frankly, untested purges that are inducing a stronger response."
Now, if you know anything about vaccines and how they "induce a response" you will know that they are basically poisoning you in order for your body to attack whatever they have injected you with. Therefore, for the doctor to say that these new vaccines will induce a "stronger response" I can only shudder to think how they are achieving this. The phrase "drastic times call for drastic measures" springs to mind...
Part 3 - Putting a man on Mars
Being interviewed in this part is Doctor Robert Grenfell, director of health and biosecurity for Australia national science agency. Robert previously developed vaccines for both the Zika and Ebola virus.
Robert workforce has partnered with teams abroad for human trials, should they get through pre-clinical trials, and then any potential vaccine would need a licence from the regulators.
Doctor Robert - "I'm a solid supporter for a robust regulation system because medical history has a history of many failed therapeutics and some that have actually caused a great deal of harm to people. So the regulators are looking for safety and ethicacy, that is that it does what it's supposed to do."
Kavita - "But given the exceptional nature of the Coronavirus, do you think this will be speeded through?"
Doctor Robert - "This degree of scrutiny will be streamlined in the presence of a pandemic. It's something that usually takes years, so we are in different times."
Kavita - "Just so people around the world understand. Is this a regulator for each country or is it an international regulator, so if it's approved in Australia then it's approved globally?"
Doctor Robert - "This is the interesting thing about pandemics. There is a special charter that, through the W.H.O, during a pandemic there is a harmonisation of regulation, particularly with respect to vaccines. So, generally an approach will be made in a signatory country that can then actually be given 'W.H.O. approval for use'. Then other countries will have to accept the choice of 'Do I ask for scrutiny of the data myself, or do I accept the ruling given by W.H.O?"
I mentioned earlier about the 1976 Swine flu vaccine and how it turned out to have severe side effects because it was rushed out after insufficient testing. Well, guess what? The only other instance where this special charter had been used was the Swine flu pandemic of 1976 and we now know the devastating consequences that vaccine had.
But why should we dwell on the past, or learn from our mistakes when there is "So much political will($$$)?" I mean, that was 1976 and science has improved so much. Anyway, it can't be that difficult, right?
Doctor Robert - "The analogy I use is; creating a vaccine is like trying to put a man on the moon, that's the level of science we are dealing with...Usually it can take from 10 to 20-years to get a vaccine through, so this is actually being done very very fast(You don't say...) So, if we can get this out in 18-months then that would be a record and if we can do it in 12-months then that would be great, because of all the lives it would save."
Kavita - "There's a lot of pressure, isn't there, politically and with citizens wanting to know when they'll get a vaccine? You say 18-months would be a record, does the speed concern you?"
Doctor Robert - "The speed would concern me if we were to jeopardise the attention to safety and quality(ethicacy) through the scientific process."
Part 4 - The final hurdle
In this final part Kavita interviews Diarmaid McDonald, Lead organiser of 'Just treatment'
"I've worked on access to medicines issues for many years, focused on global HIV. Over recent years I've become increasingly interested in the impact of the pharmaceutical industry on the NHS. I got Just Treatment started and I'm now working with Wiz and our leader group to build support for a total rethink in how we develop and sell medicines. I believe these changes are essential to the future of the NHS as we know it."
Diarmaid states that he wasn't surprised at all with the Coronavirus, saying that he "saw it coming" after previous outbreaks like SARS and MERS. He goes on to inform the listeners of how SARS and MERS are both variant strains of Coronavirus and how the lack of funding towards those vaccines have had an impact on the current vaccine research.
Diarmaid - "A SARS vaccine was created in 2004, but when it reached Phase-3 funds dried up. Pharmaceutical companies usually fund this, but with this vaccine they weren't interested. This was because by the time the vaccine reached this phase the outbreak had faded away and no new cases were being reported. Subsequently, the vaccine would have to be stockpiled and therefore profit for their investment could not be assured. The pharmaceutical companies addressed congress on this issue, stating; 'No one wants to invest in a product designed not to be used'
To me, this is a prime example that shows the true intentions of the companies behind the vaccines. As soon as the prospect of profits were off the table they pulled the plug. But if Diarmaid could see the return of Coronavirus, then surely the pharmaceutical giants could also have predicted its return. And had they carried on funding research into the SARS vaccine and saw it to fruition, then we would be more prepared for this latest strain. Instead, Big-Pharma dumped us and placed the medical community back to square one. Now, instead of using the SARS vaccine and tweaking it to adapt to Covid-19, scientists are having to catch up on 16-years of lost research, rushing new "untested methods" through the process. Thanks for that Big-Pharma.
All that being said, does anyone actually want this vaccine? I understand the need for those who are vulnerable, but for the 90+% who will suffer only minor symptoms from Coronavirus, is it at all necessary? I think not. In fact, I think there is probably just as much chance, if not more, that your health will be put in danger by this rushed out vaccine than it would by the virus itself.
So I guess my worst fear isn't actually the vaccine but the prospect of being forced to take it. It seems inevitable that a vaccine will be produced (well, actually it seems there's going to be more than one!) and if that's the case then so be it, but I want the free will to be able to decide if I think it's a risk worth taking...Nah!