[quote sandybeaches74]@Juststopswimming condensed, expedited, rushed, rapid delivery timeline, hurried, etc etc... it all equals risk if you think it through. Im a project manager and it doesn't matter what you're doing or producing, if you do it faster, you increase risk of missing something.
You assess what you believe to be the risk based on the information but as a young, fit, healthy person, for me the risk of having a long term unproven vaccine, far outweighs the risk of not having it.
I'll have it in a few years if it proves to be safe and effective. [/quote]
This just isn't true though is it? To take a hypothetical example, say there are 4 stages in a process and each stage takes 1 month to complete at a completely normal pace. Stage 4 is production of the product. Let's also assume that each stage needs £100,000 of funding before you can start it.
Under normal circumstances you would be looking at something like this:
Raise initial £100k - 3 months
Complete phase 1 - 1 month
Raise second £100k - 3 months
Compete phase 2 - 1 month
Raise third £100k - 3 months
Complete phase 3 - 1 month
Apply for licence - 6 months
Raise fourth £100,000 - 3 months
Complete stage 4 - 1 month
Total time taken - 1 year and 10 months
Now assuming similar changes to those that have occurred with these vaccines:
Presented with £400,000
Complete phase 1 - 1 month
Complete phase 2 - 1 month
Complete phases 3 & 4 - simultaneously - 1 month
Apply for licence - 1 month
Total time taken - 4 months
You haven't shortened or missed any of the steps that actually matter just skipped a lot of the "admin". Would you normally produce a vaccine at risk before trials have been completed? No. Not for any particular reason other than that if you make loads of it and then it doesn't pass trials/licensing you have to throw it all away and all the manufacturing costs are wasted. Why would a company do that normally? It makes no commercial sense.
Here the vaccine has been made at risk because, due to the huge amounts of funding and large scale demand for the product, the losses that would result from a failure are worth the risk of the reduction in time taken to produce the vaccine.
Do we think that when the licence application is made this will go the back of the queue as usual with a wait before someone gets to it, or do we think it will be front of the queue with all hands on deck to review it? Again, reduction in time but of no real consequence to quality or safety of the product.
There are some brilliant podcasts on all this, I really think people would feel more reassured on the time issue if they listened to what the scientists developing the vaccine say they are doing. Sarah Gilbert who is developing the Oxford vaccine has adult triplets in their 20s. They were all participants in early stage trials of the Oxford vaccine.