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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the give-it-a-shot dept.

Some scientists are taking a DIY coronavirus vaccine, and nobody knows if it's legal or if it works:

Preston Estep was alone in a borrowed laboratory, somewhere in Boston. No big company, no board meetings, no billion-dollar payout from Operation Warp Speed, the US government's covid-19 vaccine funding program. No animal data. No ethics approval.

What he did have: ingredients for a vaccine. And one willing volunteer.

Estep swirled together the mixture and spritzed it up his nose.

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 believes the vaccine designed by Estep, his former graduate student at Harvard and one of his proteges, 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," says Church, who says he has not stepped outside of his house in five months. The US Centers for Disease Control recently reported that as many as one-third of patients who test positive for covid-19 but are never hospitalized battle symptoms for weeks or even months after contracting the virus. "I think that people are highly underestimating this disease," Church says.

Harmless as the experimental vaccine may be, though, whether it will protect anyone who takes it is another question. And the independent researchers who are making and sharing it might be stepping onto thin legal ice, if they aren't there already.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday July 30 2020, @12:51PM (5 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 30 2020, @12:51PM (#1028575)

    The legality aspect?

    I almost became a chemist and its a broad stereotype but generally lab environments will fire you if you consume anything in the lab (for both safety and property ownership reasons) and you get fired for taking anything home.

    They're mostly aiming at workers trying to make a meth lab at work or "adopting" test animals as pets (or as dinner?), but it would probably catch a guy mixing his own vaccines.

    There's gray area, I had a distant friend who became a radiologist and would record his timesheet as testing when he would x-ray crazy stuff. Crazy like ham radio equipment, 1990s era laptops (which were new and cost $$$$ at the time), nurses purses (AFAIK with their permission), if it fit in the machine he probably zapped it at one time or another. He zapped his pager a bunch of times, his wallet, etc. I will say that something like a mostly plastic handheld ham radio when xrayed looks like cool abstract art. He's probably still out there zapping weird objects. He had a different slang word than zap that radiologists apparently use, but I don't remember.

    Anyway yeah there's a difference between the prosecutor going after you in court vs your boss firing you.

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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday July 30 2020, @01:10PM

    by looorg (578) on Thursday July 30 2020, @01:10PM (#1028580)

    So what they don't know about won't hurt them except that Estep now just outed himself, or got outed by his friend, in the news so he would or should expect a stern talking to from his boss or the HR department at whatever lab he works at.

  • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:10PM (3 children)

    by wisnoskij (5149) <reversethis-{moc ... ksonsiwnohtanoj}> on Thursday July 30 2020, @03:10PM (#1028674)

    "they're mostly aiming at workers trying to make a meth lab at work or "adopting" test animals as pets"

    I feel like rules like this would more likely be in place to stop idiots showing off and getting themselves killed. Maybe I am way off base here, but I suspect there are 1000 lab workers who would try to cure their cold with lab supplies for every 1 who would try to turn lab supplies into meth. I am pretty sure you can make meth anywhere with over the counter materials, but if you are trying to cure the common cold you probably need access to the good stuff.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @06:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @06:08PM (#1028816)
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:08PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:08PM (#1028873)

      Trying to ban stupidity is a part of it. In the chemistry labs I was in the ban was on eating and drinking anything. Didn't matter if it was your own sandwiches. Open a sealed bottle of coke and take a swig. Rules violation, out the door. If you were thirsty you washed up and went out to the break room.
      It wasn't unreasonable, some of the stuff in chemistry labs is deadly in tiny doses. A blanket ban on eating and drinking was the only way to have a clear rule.
      Funny thing, it is also a place where every guy washes his hands before taking a piss.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 31 2020, @12:16PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 31 2020, @12:16PM (#1029236)

        It wasn't unreasonable, some of the stuff in chemistry labs is deadly in tiny doses.

        Bringing up contemporary political issues, can't you just tie a bandanna around your mouth and suddenly even nerve gas is safe? Or declare a BLM protest in the lab and suddenly everything is medically safe?