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TThe world is watching closely the Covid-19 vaccine trials conducted by the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford. Australian Josh McGrane is an Oxford-based associate professor and educational researcher. He decided to participate in the trials when he saw the call for volunteers on Facebook earlier this year.
Why did you get involved?
It was a mixture of selfishness and benevolence. This was in March, everything was starting in the UK and it was almost impossible to do a test. I was traveling at the beginning of the year and your mind wanders.
At the time, the only way you would be tested in the UK is if you were admitted to hospital with a strong suspicion of having Covid. Participating in the test gives me a direct connection to get screened to see if I have had it, and in the future, there is a direct way to get tested.
There was the other part, which was the more benevolent aspect. At the time, with universities shutting down and going crazy over the implications of all this, there were many research calls asking people to direct their research towards Covid-19. In the field I work in, it’s not that it would have been impossible for me to do that.
But for me, I felt like it would have been somewhat cynical. He’s only after money for research. I’m not a virologist, I don’t work in medical science, how about you give them the money for now? This, to me, felt like something I could do, which would make a real and tangible contribution.
In what phase of the trial did you participate?
This was at the beginning of phase two. Phase one had started only a couple of weeks earlier, and everyone in phase one knew they were getting the vaccine. But I’m in first phase two so as far as I know I didn’t get the vaccine, possibly I got the control vaccine that was selected because it had a similar side effect profile to Covid 19.
How long is the trial and what happened?
It is a 12 month trial. So she was going for an initial exam to make sure she’s in good health and, I assume, she hadn’t had coronavirus yet to participate in it. About two weeks after that, I received a vaccination. Then it was a pretty intense few weeks of having to fill out the questionnaire and take their temperature on any given day and report them online. Then it was a one-month, three-month, six-month check-up and finally a 12-month check-up, and the 12-month check-up is optional.
When they are testing you, do they tell you something?
No, nothing. I have explicitly asked them if, at some point, it turns out that I have had Covid or that I have antibodies, will they tell me? Probably if you’ve had Covid they would tell you, but they don’t tell you if you’ve had the immune response and antibodies because they tried to keep you blind.
Were you nervous that you might have an adverse reaction?
Of course, you are a little nervous. You are doing something experimental [and] in general, everyone was very nervous at the time. But they did a really thorough job of getting into all the background details.
The only thing they did go into explicitly about is that there was a theoretical possibility that having the vaccine could actually cause a more adverse reaction to the Covid catch rather than provide immune protection. When I heard that, I thought, what do you mean by “a theoretical possibility”? Have you observed this answer empirically? I spoke to one of the researchers and he told me that it had not been observed empirically with this type of vaccine, but that this type of response had been observed in other types of vaccines. So that’s something important. You may have a worse reaction as a result of receiving this vaccine. That, of course, makes you a little nervous.
But then I spoke to them about the fact that they use this same vaccine technology for Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), and I asked them if they saw any of these types of adverse responses in that vaccine and they hadn’t, so I said I felt safe about it.
Did you have any side effects?
I’ve had it twice, I got a booster shot, so now I’m part of the sub-trial where some people are getting booster shots again, although it could be the control vaccine.
The first time I got it, I felt a bit discolored for a day or two. I had a bit of a headache and felt fatigued. I have had other vaccines to travel and they warn you of the side effects, and nothing happens. With this, I definitely felt some side effects, but they were very mild and nothing that a few doses of acetaminophen cannot fix.
Did you look at it from an academic point of view? What did you think of the way it was carried out?
I did. Everything was done in a very ethical way from an investigation point of view. If anything, they went out of their way to provide you with all the background information and potential risks, [with] many ways.
As a researcher, he was particularly interested in the experimental setup. So I asked them when I was going to get the injection, if it was a double-blind or single-blind, and single-blind trial, so they would know what they were giving people. That is curious.
The weirdest part was, when you think about it, it’s not really a true experiment, because it’s not like they’re giving half the people a vaccine and half the people a placebo vaccine and then us Covid, for obvious reasons. They send you out into the wild to catch it or not. And you might not get it because there isn’t much in the community anymore. That ended up being the case at Oxford. That is why they have had to expand to places like the United States and Brazil to try to take advantage of this natural experiment in places where there is much greater community transmission.
Another thing they did in the Oxford area. [and] the broader area is that they recruited health workers. People who work in hospitals day after day with people with Covid. Obviously, they are doing many different things to try to get around the fact that they depend on a natural infection.
Did you feel immune? Or were you still nervous?
I probably shouldn’t say it as a researcher, but from a psychological point of view, you feel “okay, now I’m immunized, let me leave the house”, although I’m not sure I had the vaccine, it could have been the placebo. There was definitely a psychological impact of feeling a bit like yes, I’m fine.
Were you following the story in the media?
I did, it’s been very interesting that the Jenner Vaccine Group in Oxford is doing all of this for non-profit. They did amazing things with the Ebola vaccine and then they are the ones who are predominantly working on Middle East respiratory syndrome. The fact that this is all non-profit is great. So I’ve been following not just the actual research findings, but the feedback around it.
Then the story about the adverse reaction came up, but it didn’t bother me in the least. I have already been vaccinated twice [and] I know what my answer was. And I think there is a very good chance that this person who has had this problem with spinal cord inflammation, probably has nothing to do with the vaccine, and there are always extreme outliers in this kind of thing. For me personally, these findings do not worry or bother me at all.
If anything, I have seen in some Australian media, in particular, the suggestion that this is what happens when you rush things. That’s the exact opposite answer to what you should have. They are clearly trying to do the right thing. It is a case among thousands of people who have now been given this vaccine and are doing the right thing by saying “pause everything, investigate and then see what the causes of this were and make decisions in the future.” It should be good news for the integrity of the scientists running the trial.
Let’s say this vaccine moves forward, it could be a major event for the world. Do you have an idea of the importance of being a part of it?
Say ah! As a result, I hope that the flowers and champagne will flood my apartment. Look, it’s great to be involved with thinking right, this could be what saves humanity. Although, do I want to save humanity given where we were before all this confinement? I hope this comes with some kind of kick in the butt to make things better if we can get out the other side of all of this.
Do I feel any sense of personal importance? No, not really. What have I had to sacrifice at the end of the day? I had to go to some medical appointments and I don’t really like needles. So getting blood pumped on a regular occasion has not been so pleasant. But it’s good to be involved, it’s good to have contributed. I feel a feeling of contribution in myself, but not a feeling of having done something important for the world. It’s something that in five years, when this is a distant memory for all of us, it’s like, hey, I was one of those people who saved them all, so the beers are on you.
