Dispatch 13: Challenge Trials

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if someone asked you to get infected with the COVID-19 virus, deliberately, in order to speed up the development of a vaccine? Would you do it? Would you risk your life to save others?

For months, dozens of companies have been racing to create coronavirus vaccines. Finally, three have done it. But according to the experts, we’re not out of the woods yet; we’ll need several vaccines to satisfy the global demand. One way to speed up the development process is a controversial technique called a human challenge trial, in which human subjects are intentionally infected with the virus. Senior correspondent Molly Webster gets the lowdown from Public News Service reporter Laura Rosbrow-Telem and then tracks down some of the tens of thousands of people who have volunteered to participate in a challenge trial.

Special thanks to Jonathan Miller.

This episode was reported by Molly Webster and Laura Rosbrow-Telem and produced by Molly Webster and Pat Walters.

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we start, just want to let you know there's a moment or two of strong language
0:06.5	in the story.
0:09.0	Oh, wait, you're listening.
0:16.2	Hello, hi, Laura.
0:30.4	I figured I'm good.
0:32.1	I'm good, how are you?
0:33.4	Hey, I'm Chad Ibu Mora.
0:34.8	This is Radio Lab.
0:36.5	We've not done a coronavirus dispatch since the summer, I think.
0:41.2	So we're going to do one this week.
0:42.7	This is dispatch number 13.
0:45.2	It's a key number that it is.
0:47.0	And this dispatch kind of grew out of a simple conversation between our senior correspondent
0:51.8	Molly Webster and reporter Laura Ross Browell Tellum.
0:56.6	How did you stumble into the world of the story?
1:01.2	So let's see.
1:02.2	So, I mean, actually, it's sort of funny.
1:05.0	I'm just going to say all of this in case it's helpful.
1:09.0	Yeah, everything.
1:10.9	So I actually had this very cookie fiction idea.
1:16.0	Normally Laura's a reporter for public news service, but given how crazy everything's
1:20.1	been, she was sort of wondering if she could come up with a cool fictional scenario to do
	...

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