People Are Volunteering To Be Exposed To The Coronavirus...For Science

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

In this episode, Maddie Sofia talks with Invisibilia's Alix Spiegel about the bioethics of conducting human challenge trials with the aim of producing a viable coronavirus vaccine. We hear from James Kublin, a clinical health professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington, and from Lehua Gray, a 32-year-old woman interested in participating in a trial.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.5	Maddie Sifai here, so today on Shortwave, Elise Speagle, one of the hosts of Invisibilia,
0:10.9	NPR's podcast about human behavior has a story for us.
0:14.7	Hey Elise.
0:15.7	Hey Maddie.
0:16.7	So, I do have a story for you and I want to start by telling you about this woman, Lehu
0:23.2	Agre.
0:24.2	She lives in Texas and about a month ago she saw this Facebook post from a kind of
0:28.2	science friend of hers that started with words, feeling brave.
0:33.9	And then went on to talk about this opportunity where people like her, just normal everyday
0:38.8	people, could purposefully get infected with the coronavirus.
0:45.3	And Lehu was just like, you know what?
0:48.9	That's exactly what I want to do.
0:50.9	I 100,000% don't want to die very strongly, but I'm not super afraid of death.
1:01.1	Huh.
1:02.1	Yeah.
1:03.1	I mean, in fact, for her, she sees this as the most moral, personal choice that she can possibly
1:09.1	make because even though she might get hurt, it is from her perspective for the greater
1:16.2	good.
1:17.2	How old is Lehu Agre?
1:18.2	She's 32.
1:19.2	Okay.
	...

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