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Characterizing altruistic motivation in potential volunteers for SARS-CoV-2 challenge trials
Preprint
in English
| medRxiv
| ID: ppmedrxiv-21253548
ABSTRACT
In human challenge trials, volunteers are deliberately infected with a pathogen to accelerate vaccine development and answer key scientific questions. In the U.S., preparations for challenge trials with the novel coronavirus are complete, and in the U.K., challenge trials have recently begun. However, ethical concerns have been raised about the potential for invalid consent or exploitation. These concerns largely reflect worries that challenge trial volunteers may be unusually risk-seeking or too economically vulnerable to refuse the payments these trials provide, rather than being motivated primarily by altruistic goals. We conducted the first large-scale survey of intended human challenge trial volunteers and found that SARS-CoV-2 challenge trial volunteers exhibit high levels of altruistic motivations without any special indication of poor risk perception or economic vulnerability. Findings indicate that challenge trials with the novel coronavirus can attract volunteers with background conditions, attitudes, and motivations that should allay key ethical concerns.
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Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
medRxiv
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Rct
Language:
English
Year:
2021
Document type:
Preprint