I didn’t forget that, I guessed the answer. I could imagine the rationalist community scraping together a 200-person challenge trial, but that would be a big project. (At least the vaccine-making part wouldn’t be too hard or expensive, though.)
If only a few thousand people are ever going to get the vaccine a challenge trial doesn’t make sense, especially not such a big one.
Maybe you could have some animal trials instead though.
I agree this is the main potential failure mode of that plan. That said, the upshot of challenge trials is that we can get good data with very few people, so quite a bit less than 200 could suffice; I haven’t run the numbers. More generally, it seems like the sort of thing where a bunch of folks on LessWrong would discuss it for a while and figure out a way to do it which gives maximum information for minimum risk.
Sure. Only in that specific scenario, DIY vaccine, for maybe a small community, very safe, scales well in that range; i would say the value of the information you could get from a challenge trial seems low.
Instead i would just give it to everyone.
If only a few thousand people are ever going to get the vaccine a challenge trial doesn’t make sense, especially not such a big one. Maybe you could have some animal trials instead though.
I agree this is the main potential failure mode of that plan. That said, the upshot of challenge trials is that we can get good data with very few people, so quite a bit less than 200 could suffice; I haven’t run the numbers. More generally, it seems like the sort of thing where a bunch of folks on LessWrong would discuss it for a while and figure out a way to do it which gives maximum information for minimum risk.
Sure. Only in that specific scenario, DIY vaccine, for maybe a small community, very safe, scales well in that range; i would say the value of the information you could get from a challenge trial seems low. Instead i would just give it to everyone.