In general, when it comes to pharmaceutical companies or drug trials, the ethicists immediately take action, calling the ethics committees and setting the stakes. These "ethical" stakes are generally very strict, in the sense that there are some things you just can't do (no, no, no) and some things you can do, but it is clear that those on the ethics committee do not trust you.

Yet, apparently the ethics committees have no problem if an Anglo-Saxon-style government experiments with the entire population. I am referring to the peculiar English vaccination modality, which consists in taking a vaccine that requires two doses and doing only the first of the two vaccinations, taking advantage of the fact that in this way the vaccination band is doubled.

Which works well, if you do like Il Corriere and call it a "bet". If you call it a "bet" it seems like a playful thing, almost fun. Like the machines. If you call it a bet, you don't see it for what it is: a large-scale experiment that uses the population as a guinea pig.

When Pfizer released the vaccine documentation, in fact, it released data on patients with TWO vaccinations. And there is no Pfizer documentation recommending using a single dose without a booster. Moreover, mRNA vaccines are new, and therefore if it is true that using new technologies it is possible to shorten development times, it is also true that we are adding one layer of risk to another.

Because a person with a lot of experience in pharmacology (like Boris Johnson) can also decide that yes, usually even with a single dose you will get some results. But mRNA vaccines are new. Actually, there is no one who has any experience with it.

So what did Johnson do? He took a category vaccine never used before, and ordered to follow a practice on which the manufacturer had NOT provided data, which the manufacturer has never recommended, and with no experience available on similar vaccines, not even on animals. . As if that were not enough, in the UK they have the greatest indication of a mutated virus.

Which were are are the risks?

• the first risk is that, "struggling" with a mild dose of vaccine, the virus becomes resistant to the vaccine, mutating again. As happens with antibiotics, for example. We also have records of resistance to low-dose vaccine against viruses, however, even if milder than resistance to antibiotics . However, no one has ever tested vaccines used outside associated medical practices.
• the second risk was simply to reach a certain point of the year with a useless vaccination because the antibodies no longer exist. If it turns out that the disappearance of the neutralizing Ab is faster in this case, the dead would be dead, but other people would continue to die and a lot of time would be lost.
• the third risk was that a single dose was not sufficient from the start on a large scale. In that case it would have been useless and the whole process would have to be repeated.

The risk, however, is not very relevant in my speech, because in the case of drugs it is difficult to assess it. The problem is VERY upstream:

the British government has carried out a pharmacological experimentation program on the population, which, however, was unaware of participating in the experiment.

This pandemic, that is, has brought down TWO taboos:

• the one against mRNA vaccines, which until now had ALWAYS been object of the obstruction of the "ethics committees", and of which everyone is suddenly enthusiastic. So now Europe cannot put GMOs in food, despite being proven harmless, but it will cure itself using mRNA vaccines, of which we know little about the long-term effects.
• the one against pharmacological experimentation on the population, as if that were not enough, a population unaware of being part of an experiment.

Were there alternatives? Well, I see two:

• to develop vaccines with "classic" techniques, as they did in Russia and Cuba, and to begin experimenting with mRNA drugs on small groups of patients, perhaps with other diseases. A carpet vaccination means that if it goes wrong, it goes wrong for everyone. Small groups of people, perhaps volunteers, would have changed the scenario a lot.
• at least warn the population, saying “hey, we don't know what could happen if we do this thing on the whole country and only give you one dose in two. If it goes well, we will be the first to get out of the pandemic, if it goes wrong, we are screwed but screwed screwed. " And then at least observe the reaction of the population.

For now the "bet" has been successful, and thanks to the guinea pigs across the Channel we know that (in the short term) it seems to work. It must be said that the experiment is still in progress, but the data seem comforting.

And let's be clear: I have nothing against the idea of ​​using the British as guinea pigs for pharmaceutical trials. In fact, I find this idea to be attractive in itself. As long as we stick to the British, I mean.

What worries me instead is to see a lot of Italian press saying “we have to do like them and participate in the experiment while it is still in progress”.

Here, but also no.

Of course, some newspapers (such as Il Corriere) are trying to make Italians swallow the pill. They call it a "gamble", they say the Brits have had "guts", and are doing their best to make it look cool.

But I don't so much agree with the idea that clearing pharmacological experiments on the unsuspecting population is the right thing.

Because once this is cleared, what will be the next step?

I have always been, and still am, a fairly convinced scientist. But science takes it all, including security protocols. You can't say "I'm so science geek that I fuck security protocol": security protocols ARE PART of science.

And the idea, which comes from the newspaper of the Italian financiers, of pressing for the population to accept that governments "bet" on medicines, actually making experiments on the population, is quite worrying me.

Of course, thanks to the British we now know that by vaccinating with a single dose we could speed up the campaign (even if the experiment is still in progress). Likewise, thanks to Mengele's experiments we know that a human being immersed in cold water dies in 50 seconds.

The problem is that, although Mengele's experiments "provided data", no one had ever dreamed of saying that Mengele's "bets" were legitimate. On the contrary, now that someone has carried out a mass experiment on an unsuspecting population, from the world of finance (and its newspapers) there are worrying signs of customs clearance of this practice, which, for example, pharmaceutical companies do not encourage.

Personally, I would ask the Italian newspapers the following question:

Do you really want a Europe in which it is possible to carry out drug experiments on a large scale, using the population of entire nations as guinea pigs, even contravening the recommendations of pharmaceutical companies?

But I fear that the question would be useless: those who work for those newspapers would answer something like "I hear the CDA and I can tell you what I think from tomorrow".

In the meantime, remember: betting is the new experiment, and being guinea pigs is the new citizenship. At least, according to the Italian financial newspaper, called Corriere della Sera.