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They have so far provided invaluable help in space exploration and astronomy, analyzing countless images and home PC data describing planets, stars or elementary particles: so-called ‘citizen scientists’, citizen scientists, are now an indispensable aid for large projects research, but for the first time his behavior is controversial.
It is they who, joining forces in online word of mouth, have begun to design DIY vaccines against the Covid-19 pandemic and to test them on themselves. To denounce the phenomenon, in an article in the journal Science, there is a group of bioethicists led by Christi Guerrini, from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
In addition to being obtained outside of the canonical rules of scientific experimentation, DIY vaccines are tested by the very citizen-scientists who conceived and created them, raising legal, ethical, and public health issues.
Rapidly Deployable Vaccine Collaboration (RaDVaC) is the name of one of a group of makeshift scientists dedicated to the development and self-administration of home-made vaccines. It’s a phenomenon, Guerrini observes, that could have the opposite effect that has encouraged these DIY researchers so far, eventually eroding public confidence in the development and safety of the pandemic vaccine. Its activity, observes the expert, is possible thanks to a regulatory vacuum that is more urgent than ever to fill.
There are only hypotheses, for the moment, about the origin of the phenomenon. It could, for example, stem from the belief that self-testing is faster than the process required to develop and approve a vaccine and that speed is critical in a pandemic.
A belief, however, that according to Guerrini is incorrect: if vaccines born in this way were regulated, the academic points out, “it would allow vaccines of doubtful safety and efficacy to endanger public health and signal a reduction in standards.” . a time marked by vaccine skepticism and during a highly politicized pandemic could undermine public confidence in all vaccines. ”
According to the bioethicist “even when an ethical review is not required, citizen scientists must take seriously their ethical responsibilities when promoting DIY interventions, especially if these can have potentially serious effects on public health and society.”
