Its reported that a 28 year old Brazilian doctor had a placebo as part of a covid vaccine trial. I generally stay away from the msm but a friend told me about it.some of the comments I read from readers seemed to me pure ignorance and made my blood boil.
Anyone any thoughts on all this ( and links) or is this just my suspicious mind?
Placebos are regularly used in drug trials.
My understanding from sources like Dr Coleman, RFK Jr, et al - both of whom I'd give far more credence too than anyone I've seen on the BBC or ITV lately, to name a few - is that vaccines are not tested with (or against) placebos.
Not sure what you mean. What happened is that one of the volunteers in the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine trial was a 28 years old recently-graduated Brazilian doctor who has died. Word on the street is that he was in the control group. Some people say he had a "placebo", although I'm not sure this is correct, I also heard the control group was given a different vaccine, not an actual placebo, an innocuous substance --- unless you believe vaccines are innocuous substances, in that case think again.
Of course there would be placebos or alternative treatments given it a vaccine trial. This is just basic stuff.
It is also being said that he died of Covid-19, so his death not having taken the vaccine might also play out as advertisement for the non-yet released medication. Unless a rigorous statistical analysis says otherwise, of course.
It's all unconfirmed, as it should be. I think it's very worrying that details about what has happened to someone in a vaccine trial are showing up in the media, especially details like whether someone was in the treatment group or not.
João Pedro Rodrigues Feitosa took up a very difficult career, and did something brave on top of that. He has my respects. I hope his death was not meaningless, and I hope it doesn't create some kind of political circus.
Disclaimer: I am Brazilian, ask me if you would like help translating any articles about it.
Unless the vaccine (or any new pharmaceutical treatment) is tested on a control group who receives the placebo the results of any efficacy tests are pretty much statistically meaningless.
Plus given the very low effectiveness and high rate of side-effects of previous attempts at corona-virus vaccines there must be a multiple large control group if they dont want a public health disaster that would dwarf thalidomide.
Given just how low the actual risk from SARs CoV 2 is any in the placebo control group in this case. It the people in the non--placebo group who are greatest risk.
This whole vaccine story is just hype. It takes 5 to 10 years to develop a safe effective vaccine for a well behaved stable infectious agent. Corona-viruses are like influenza and rhino-viruses (which cause the majority of colds) they are very badly behaved viruses. Which is why after 50 years a really good year for the Influenza shot is over 50% effectiveness. Its in the 20%/30% range most years. And why there is no vaccine for the common cold. And never will be.
Vaccines only have a serious impact on epidemics when there is an effective vaccine ready and available to go at the very start of the epidemic. Otherwise even the most basic and safe(ish) vaccine will only appear several years after the epidemic is over.
Thats the science. And has been for well over 120 plus years.
