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Questionable herpes vaccine research backed by tech heavyweight Peter Thiel may have jeopardized $15 million in federal research funding to Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. That's according to documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request by The State Journal Register.
In August, Kaiser Health News reported that Thiel and other conservative investors had contributed $7 million for the live-but-weakened herpes virus vaccine, developed by the late SIU researcher William Halford. The investments came after Halford and his private company, Rational Vaccines, had begun conducting small clinical trials in the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. With the off-shore location, Rational Vaccines' trial skirted federal regulations and standard safety protocols for human trials, including having approval and oversight from an institutional review board (IRB).
Experts were quick to call the unapproved trial "patently unethical," and researchers rejected the data from publication, calling the handling of safety issues "reckless." The government of St. Kitts opened an investigation into the trial and reported that health authorities there had been kept in the dark.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday November 16 2017, @07:46PM (8 children)
Than how about you take it fucker? Why does that massive piece of shit Thiel get to live like an emperor with the best medical? Oh, yeah, that's right... it's because he has no respect for ethics, no respect for the law, no respect for the lives of other people, and just sees people like human lab rats to do as he pleases.
You want us to shut up? Then how bout both you and Thiel shut the fuck up about our protestations, take the damn medicine yourselves? Why should Thiel be excluded from the test groups?
If you want to benefit from Nazi fucking medicine, then you better be prepared to fully contribute to their medical "programs".
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Touché) by takyon on Thursday November 16 2017, @07:59PM (6 children)
Did the Nazis pay the people they experimented on? Did they give any of them treatments with the expectation that they would be cured?
What's your price? Much higher than the Kitts islanders'? But you're more than willing to make their decisions for them.
Geez, you're more manipulative than Thiel!
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(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:01PM (4 children)
Thiel has also been interested in sea-steading. Last I read, he had given up the idea due to economic infeasibility. I've always felt like a no-holds-barred medical testing ground might be one of the easiest ways to recoup costs on such a project. Bonus anarchy-points if you're willing to do organ (head?) transplants that other nations ban.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:13PM (1 child)
The head transplant is still up in the air: https://themerkle.com/russian-billionaire-will-not-partake-in-human-head-transplant-after-all/ [themerkle.com]
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(Score: 2) by lx on Thursday November 16 2017, @10:46PM
Thanks for that mental image.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:14PM (1 child)
Older articles:
http://www.newsweek.com/head-transplant-sergio-canavero-valery-spiridonov-china-2017-591772 [newsweek.com]
http://www.newsweek.com/rat-head-transplant-sergio-canavero-xiaoping-ren-590925 [newsweek.com]
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(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:27PM
Hence the question mark. It might become reality sooner with some sketchy testing on impoverished people, though!
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Thursday November 16 2017, @10:15PM
Paying doesn't mean much. There are desperate people in the world willing to subject themselves to horrible things. Just because you find somebody willing, doesn't mean that it was intrinsically ethical. No there probably was no expectation of a cure, but most medical subjects have to put up with scary side effects and the unknown nonetheless.
I'm not making their decision for them, but saying that Peter Thiel shouldn't be able to exploit their desperation for money. I'm saying that if somebody wanted to participate, even to be paid for it, that there needs to be oversight by impartial people. Like say, a medical review board. I'm not making their medical decisions for them, but it certainly seems like Peter Thiel and his investors are. They are the players in the game with the most power and information, and they're using that to manipulate people with less power, less information, and less sophistication. The medical review boards and U.S bureaucracy are at the very least designed to support the patient. So that patients are not left with the situation of trusting their doctor on their word.
There is a reason why doctors post their degrees in their offices.
Not sure how that is manipulation when I express facts. Fact: Peter Thiel is benefiting from unethical medicine trials in a fairly unregulated country while lying to both the participants, the governments of both countries, and the entire medical community. So just like the Nazis, it was always about gaining power and information at the expense of people they don't consider equals, or human. Yes, I claim that it is Nazi medicine, in that it has no intentions of working with the medical communities worldwide, or being subject to their review, judgement, etc. Sorry, but that certainly fits the Nazi description to me.
If it is medicine that he needs, then he can be part of the trials. You seem to be held up because the islanders agreed, but I think that ignores the ignorance and duress that they suffer from. Informed consent is something easy to achieve when the person consenting doesn't really understand, and very dangerous when the person consenting is trusting somebody (like a researcher or doctor) to be concerned about their well being, when patient well being is clearly not a major factor.
People convert to Christianity on a regular basis when the priest arrives with bibles *and* food or medicine. Saying that it was their choice just seems simplistic and deliberate ignorance.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Troll) by crafoo on Friday November 17 2017, @01:30AM
We all benefited greatly from Nazi medicine. You directly benefited from Nazi medical science. It was a treasure trove of information and advanced medical science by decades, maybe more. Thiel's team seemed to adhere to the local laws. I don't see anything necessarily wrong with this. Not everyone must comply to your moral code. You can express your dismay and anger. It doesn't make you right or "more correctly moral".