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Comment by tehjoker | Hacker News Reader

Probably not since January, but maybe after the phase 1 trials and the dosing schedule was figured out. To be honest, if it doesn't come out that they were using it off the books, either they're suckers or we are.

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Would it even be a problem if they did? Like presumably people are generally free to do things to themselves. If they self-administered and they were allowed to consume the resource (e.g., it wasn't theft) who was harmed?

I wouldn't personally mind. I mean, these researchers are, presumably, the most informed people in the world on the subject.

Hopefully they would be well-informed enough to wait on the trial results. Remember AstraZenica?

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/astrazenecas-best-co...

Surely it's either theft or breaks FDA rules?

My guess is that while the people probably wouldn't be in trouble, the company might get in trouble with regulators for allowing it to happen.

But that's a complete, uneducated (but I think, logical) guess.

> if it doesn't come out that they were using it off the books, either they're suckers or we are.

Or it doesn't come out because they are good at keeping it secret.

Would they need to keep it a secret? Could their own employees have entered the trials?

It could be a good thing to leak it to the press. The press would feign a scandal but it would actually have the effect of showing people that they believe in their product and only a slap on the wrist would actually happen (if anything).

> To be honest, if it doesn't come out that they were using it off the books, either they're suckers or we are.

Considering high-level officials in the government apparently never received the vaccine, I would be surprised if the people involved in the research took the vaccine.

Then again, maybe secret was kept extremely well. My intuition is, if POTUS knew about it, he would have been telegraphing such on twitter back in the summer months.

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