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SARS-CoV-2 Human Challenge Trials: Rethinking the Recruitment of Healthy Young Adults First.
Matsui, Kenji; Inoue, Yusuke; Yamamoto, Keiichiro.
  • Matsui K; Director of the Division of Bioethics and Healthcare Law at the Center for Public Health Sciences at the National Cancer Center in Japan.
  • Inoue Y; Associate professor in the Department of Public Policy in the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo.
  • Yamamoto K; Head of the Office of Bioethics at the Center for Clinical Sciences at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Japan.
Ethics Hum Res ; 43(3): 37-41, 2021 May.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1173806
ABSTRACT
In the midst of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, researchers across the globe are still working to develop effective vaccines. To expedite this process even further, human challenge trials have been proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an alternative to conventional approaches. In such trials, healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with the pathogen of interest, enabling scientists to study the infection process and facilitate further research on treatments or prophylactics, including vaccines. While human challenge trials would offer a collective benefit to society, minimizing the risks is always difficult. Ethical controversy thus inevitably surrounds these trials. Typically, healthy young adults are recruited to serve as the first candidate subjects for human challenge trials because they are generally considered to represent a low-risk population. Here, we present three reasons for doubt about this healthy-young-adults-first criterion and give justification for also recruiting healthy older adults (or not-young adults), meaning those over 30 years of age, to participate in such trials for SARS-CoV-2.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Clinical Trials as Topic / Patient Selection / COVID-19 Type of study: Prognostic study / Randomized controlled trials Topics: Vaccines Limits: Adult / Humans / Young adult Language: English Journal: Ethics Hum Res Year: 2021 Document Type: Article

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Clinical Trials as Topic / Patient Selection / COVID-19 Type of study: Prognostic study / Randomized controlled trials Topics: Vaccines Limits: Adult / Humans / Young adult Language: English Journal: Ethics Hum Res Year: 2021 Document Type: Article