{"id":7805,"date":"2024-10-08T14:14:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T19:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=7805"},"modified":"2024-10-08T14:14:55","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T19:14:55","slug":"what-happens-when-humans-become-guinea-pigs-to-advance-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/10\/08\/what-happens-when-humans-become-guinea-pigs-to-advance-science\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens When Humans Become Guinea Pigs to Advance Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/newsletters\/2024-10-07\/what-happens-when-humans-become-guinea-pigs-to-advance-science?srnd=prognosis\">Bloomberg<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In early 2020, it was assumed that most people who contracted Covid would fully recover in two to three weeks. Months later, we learned that a significant proportion of survivors are plagued by lingering symptoms that we now recognize as long Covid. In 2021, analyses of electronic health record data showed how Covid patients, especially those treated in hospitals, were at higher risk of a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-021-03553-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">constellation<\/a>\u00a0of problems \u2014 from diabetes and depression to heart attacks and strokes \u2014 months later. The research, though, was based on observational data that linked or associated a SARS-CoV-2 infection with subsequent health effects. To test if the coronavirus actually\u00a0<em>causes<\/em>\u00a0a new health problem requires experimentally infecting people and comparing them with uninfected \u201ccontrols.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a rigorous review of the ethics, UK researchers did precisely that in early 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their so-called&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-02-18\/why-infect-people-deliberately-with-the-coronavirus-quicktake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">human challenge study<\/a>&nbsp;was the first \u2014 and likely only \u2014 research to involve inoculating healthy, young, unvaccinated adult volunteers with the original coronavirus strain. The research yielded unique and important insights into why some people manage to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-024-07575-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">avoid infection<\/a>&nbsp;and why others can&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lanmic\/article\/PIIS2666-5247(23)00101-5\/fulltext\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spread it widely<\/a>. But the latest finding might be the most eye-opening.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bloomberg In early 2020, it was assumed that most people who contracted Covid would fully recover in two to three weeks. Months later, we learned that a significant proportion of survivors are plagued by lingering symptoms that we now recognize as long Covid. In 2021, analyses of electronic health record data showed how Covid patients, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7806,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805\/revisions\/7806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}