He took a position on the mayor’s Facebook page, to the horror of several Friday Harbor citizens who followed him.
“Do,? and, for all, and, what, and, what, and, but, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Do you? I advanced five times with my vaccine. “
“Sounds good,” wrote Farhad Ghatan, the mayor, after some follow-up questions.
Several citizens expressed skepticism in the exchange. They were crushed by the mayor, who defended his 25-year-old friend as a “prominent pharmaceutical scientist. “St. John’s Island despite restrictions — Stine retaliated with vulgar insults. (Maximum R geek and least qualified: “I hope your pulmonary epithelial cells overexpress ACE2 so you die faster than nCoV19”).
Several citizens have reported all this to law enforcement agencies and regulators. In June, Washington’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Stine not only for making unfounded accusations against the mayor, but also for administering his unproven vaccine to about 30 people, billing $400 each. In May, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter warning Stine not to present his product in a “misleading” manner.
Although his promotional tactics were unusual, Stine far from being the only scientist to create experimental coronavirus vaccines for himself, his family, friends and other stakeholders, has done so dozens of scientists around the world, with incredibly varied methods, affiliations and claims.
The ultimate impressive effort is the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative, or RaDVaC, which features prominent Harvard geneticist George Church among its 23 indexed collaborators. (Studies, however, take a position on the Harvard campus: “While Professor Church’s lab is running several COVID-19 study projects, she has relied on Harvard Medical School that RaDVaC vaccine-like paintings are being performed in her lab,” said a spokeswoman for Harvard Medical School. )
But critics say that whatever their smart intentions, those scientists will most likely receive useful information because their vaccines are subject to genuine verification of randomized placebo-controlled studies. serious immune reactions and other side effects, or providing a false sense of protection.
“Take it yourself, and no one can or do much,” said Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. But once a user begins to encourage others to try an unsealed vaccine, “it returns directly to the days of patented medicine and chatter,” he said, referring to a time when remedies were widely sold with colorful but misleading promises.
“We are the animals”
The RaDVac vaccination effort, first discussed through the MIT Technology Review, is different from Stine’s assignment in two vital ways: no one plans to qualify for the vaccine. And unlike Stine’s explosive peroratas on Facebook, RaDVaC has a 59-page clinical document on how it works and to advise those who might need to combine the vaccine formulas themselves.
“The white paper is pretty impressive,” said Avery August, an immunologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, concerned about RaDVaC.
But the momentum of the two projects is similar. In March, when Preston Estep, a Boston-area genome specialist, read about other people dying in the midst of the pandemic, he vowed not to stand aside and emailed chemists, biologists, professors and doctors. he knew to see if some were interested in creating their own vaccine. Soon, they had developed a formula for a peptide vaccine that can be administered via a spray into the nose.
“It’s very simple, ” said Estep. ” It’s made up of five ingredients that can be combined in a doctor’s office. “
The key ingredient: small pieces of viral protein, or peptides, that scientists have ordered online. If all went well, peptides would exercise the immune formula against themselves opposed to coronavirus, even in the absence of a genuine virus.
In late April, Estep joined several collaborators in a lab as they waved the concoction and sprayed it on his nose. Church, a long-time mentor from Estep, said he took his in his bathroom for precautions for social estating.
Estep temporarily gave the vaccine to her 23-year-old son, and other collaborators also shared it with members of the family circle, so far no one has reported anything worse than nasal congestion and mild headache, Estep said. cutting and adding peptides as new studies on coronavirus emerged. So far, 8 versions have been sprayed on the nose.
A classic drug progression workflow begins with studies in mice or animals. For RaDVaC, Estep said “we’re the animals. “
But without rigorous clinical trials, August said, there is no reliable way to know if it is or if it is effective. He said he feared that the prestigious titles of scientists would mean otherwise.
Vaccine Facebook
There is a long history of scientists brazenly controlling vaccines in themselves and their children, but in recent decades this has been less common, according to Susan E Lederer, medical historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. and distribute your own medical product varies by property and country.
In August, the Institute for Scientific Research on Biological Safety Issues, a government establishment in Kazakhstan, announced that seven workers were the first to check the COVID-19 vaccine they were developing. Russian and Chinese government-affiliated scientists and educational establishments made similar statements amid the pandemic.
The challenge with Stine’s product, according to Attorney General Bob Ferguson of Washington, is that he took it. It’s just that he “sold this so-called vaccine to Washington citizens who are scared and more likely to seek a miracle cure amid a global pandemic,” Ferguson said in a statement. The trial also cites Stine’s unfounded claims of protection and effectiveness.
In March, a few months after reporting that he and his two teenage sons had been vaccinated, he and his two teenage sons had been posted on the North Coast Biologics Facebook page. After decades of running with antibodies, Stine said in an interview, she knew that making a vaccine was “pretty easy. “
He described a painting that looked a bit like writing Hollywood scripts that never turn into movies: it makes antibodies that can be used simply against pathogens and sells them to corporations that can use them to expand drugs, but that probably wouldn’t be the According to the Washington attorney general’s demand, Stine’s company dissolved administratively in 2012.
To make his vaccine, he used a genetic series of the complex open-air protein of the coronavirus to make an artificial version, put it in a saline solution, injected himself just below the surface of the skin of his arm and then made a call to check the name to look for antibodies in his bloodstream. “It took me 12 days between downloading the series and the positive name,” he said.
In his Facebook ad, he stated that this left him immune to the virus and presented “stakeholders” with the opportunity to “pay $400 consistent with their children. “
As part of an agreement that Stine despite everything reached with prosecutors, he will have to reimburse the other 30 people who had been vaccinated.
Stine says his vaccine is similar to a recombinant vaccine developed through the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and claims that a vaccine will not only protect others from the virus, but will also treat those affected by it. Louis Falo, principal investigator of the University of Pittsburgh’s efforts, said he was skeptical that Stine’s vaccine could be simply or effective depending on how it was assembled. People.
The mayor of Friday Harbor said he regretted responding to Stine’s message on his Facebook wall, rather than in private, but he doesn’t see why he deserves to apologize for accepting his friend’s words for free: “I’d have a chance to do it. “have coverage that doesn’t have any coverage and wait and wait, ” said Ghatan.
However, the controversy derailed his meeting plans, he said. But if the chance arises to take the hit, he said, “I would. “
c. 2020 The New York Times Company