Have been in touch with Rachna for the last few weeks as we discussed issues with one of the #Bhopal#clinicaltrials site for #Covaxin. Lots of issues with trial conduct as documented in her thread below.
Issues with informed consent, care of trial participants, recruitment.
This issue needs to be highlighted more as it shows us what poor oversight could mean, especially because we are now talking about expanded use of vaccines "in clinical trials mode" (not that I am sure anyone really knows what that means)
Now this is probably just an issue with an inexperienced trial site and investigators who were eager to be part of a prestigious study, but faltered on some aspects of trial conduct. But imagine this happening at scale-- how are we going to ensure protection of the vaccinees?
Specifically what were the issues with this trial site:
a) some poorer communities around the trial site were approached for recruitment, with a promise of INR 750. Potential participants often apparently herded in buses to trial site.
b) some participants do not seem to understand that they were in a clinical trial. Told you are getting vaccinated-- get it now for free.
Issues with (adequate) informed consent, copies of consent forms not provided.
c) some participants who reported with adverse events post-vaccination allege that they were asked to get investigations done of their own and purchase medicines.
(when they should have been provided medical care)
d) consent taken apparently in some instances post-facto after vaccination was already done.
This issue has been covered today by NDTV. Hope other journalists will explore how clinical trials are happening at other sites (FOR ALL VACCINE CANDIDATES).
We owe it to our trial participants to ensure proper trial conduct
(e) Continued from earlier in the thread.
Some clinical trial participants are apparently now complaining that when they reported with health complaints after vaccination, there trial related papers have been taken away from them,& they are also not getting proper medical care
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Rockefeller University Press Journals Release Policy
on Author Name Change After Publication
Journal of Cell Biology (JCB), Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), and Journal of General Physiology (JGP) announce an editorial policy allowing swift and confidential updates to author names at any time ....
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"In South Africa, which has the continent’s most robust economy and its biggest coronavirus caseload, just 0.8% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to a worldwide tracker kept by Johns Hopkins University."
"And hundreds of thousands of the country’s health workers, many of whom come face-to-face with the virus every day, are still waiting for their shots."
Angelic. Do give this a listen.
At the age of 30, Nightbirde (also known as Jane) wrote the original song “It’s Okay” about “the last year of [her] life” which has been characterized by her battle with cancer currently residing in her lungs, spine & liver
"By the end of her segment, Jane commented that though she’s only been given a 2% chance of survival that “is not 0%” and she wishes “people knew how amazing it is” that the 2% is something."
"Ahead of her performance, Jane expressed that “it’s important that everyone knows I’m so much more than the bad things that happen to me.”
"How does one honor and protect the sanctity of one’s own Blackness while also giving so much of oneself to a health care system that in many ways continues to dismiss, ignore, and mistreat Black people?" nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
"It was a random day just like any other when I suddenly stopped being just a Black person in America. I looked around at the sea of white faces that seemed to fill every space I entered, and I realized for the first time that I was now a Black person in medicine."
"Until fairly recently, it was easier than one might think to minimize the effects of racism on my life. But the more I learned about the physiology of the human body, the more I was forced to confront the degradation of the Black body."
Lancet Citizens' Commission on Reimagining India's Health System
India's resurgence of COVID-19: urgent actions needed thelancet.com/journals/lance…
First, the organisation of essential health services must be decentralised. A one-size-fits-all approach is untenable since the numbers of COVID-19 cases and health services differ substantially from district to district
Second, there must be a transparent national pricing policy and caps on the prices of all essential health services—eg, ambulances, oxygen, essential medicines, and hospital care.
On 9 May, he became one of the youngest doctors to lose their lives to COVID-19.
Dr Dipika was pregnant with their second child when she tested positive for COVID-19 on 11 April 2021. A day after losing her fetus, on 26 April, Dipika breathed her last.