The control group was vaccinated as soon as emergency authorization was granted
Mott was one of about 650 volunteers who took the experimental Moderna vaccine at a company called Johnson County Clinical Trials in Lenexa, Kan. Dr. Carlos Fierro, who runs the study there, says every participant was called back after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine.
“During that visit we discussed the options, which included staying in the study without the vaccine,” he says, “and amazingly there were people — a couple of people — who chose that.”
He suspects those individuals got spooked by rumors about the vaccine. But everybody else who had the placebo shot went ahead and got the actual vaccine. So now Fierro has essentially no comparison group left for the ongoing study.
“It’s a loss from a scientific standpoint, but given the circumstances I think it’s the right thing to do,” he says.
Be the control group. But don’t do it for yourself, or because you’re skeptical of an experimental product from a corporation granted legal immunity, or because you are concerned about the adverse effects of the vaxxes.
Do it for science.