<story><title>Coronavirus: Germany puts on crowded concerts to study risks</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53875370</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wittyreference</author><text>We developed ethics around clinical research.&lt;p&gt;One of those principles is that if you’re going to actively expose people to something - to create a possible harm where there previously wasn’t one - you have to be honestly uncertain of the potential harm (eg, it’s ethical to give you a placebo vs experimental drug because I honestly don’t know if the drug will work).&lt;p&gt;It’s unethical to -certainly- cause harm.&lt;p&gt;In part that’s because, social dynamics and power structures being what they are,  those “consenting” will skew towards the uneducated and powerless.&lt;p&gt;In part, consent isn’t even relevant - in this example, if they ended up stoking the flames of contagion, they wouldn’t just affect the concert goers but, by definition, all those exposed to the concert goers.&lt;p&gt;Amusingly, the above refers more to interventional studies - those with more than one arm. This doesn’t really have a control arm, or randomized assignment of people to exposure. It’s effectively an observational study - the sort of thing you don’t need to intentionally construct, but for the fact that people seem to not be going to concerts.&lt;p&gt;So... did they have to construct concerts artificially because not enough were occurring naturally? Did they have to create a harm that didn’t exist to begin with? Will it even be insightful? They filtered for the young, which specifically ensures there’s less of a chain of transmission available.&lt;p&gt;Considering Germany inspired so much of modern medical ethics work, it’s ironic to see them conduct such a study. I honestly wouldn’t have expected it.&lt;p&gt;I’m sure the relevant experts and authorities beat these questions to death, but even so, I’d be awfully curious to see those deliberations and what justifications were ultimately considered adequate.</text></item><item><author>darkerside</author><text>What has happened to us as people that studies like this have become so rare? We can&amp;#x27;t understand this virus without taking on some level of risk.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>akbo</author><text>I have a different perspective. In a drug trial you have to prove that a new drug is safe before handing it out to a bigger number of people. The default case (if you don&amp;#x27;t test the drug) is that nobody gets it.&lt;p&gt;In this case, it is different. People will put pressure on the government to allow concerts again rather sooner than later and the default case is probably that there will be concerts again before the Corona situation is over. If you don&amp;#x27;t do the test, you have to make the decision whether &amp;#x2F; when to allow concerts again blindly.&lt;p&gt;So basically you have the situation where people will take the new drug anyway and you have the choice whether you want to test its safeness before they do.&lt;p&gt;If you do the test and it turns out to be unsafe, at least you have good arguments when you need to make the decision.</text></comment>
<story><title>Coronavirus: Germany puts on crowded concerts to study risks</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53875370</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wittyreference</author><text>We developed ethics around clinical research.&lt;p&gt;One of those principles is that if you’re going to actively expose people to something - to create a possible harm where there previously wasn’t one - you have to be honestly uncertain of the potential harm (eg, it’s ethical to give you a placebo vs experimental drug because I honestly don’t know if the drug will work).&lt;p&gt;It’s unethical to -certainly- cause harm.&lt;p&gt;In part that’s because, social dynamics and power structures being what they are,  those “consenting” will skew towards the uneducated and powerless.&lt;p&gt;In part, consent isn’t even relevant - in this example, if they ended up stoking the flames of contagion, they wouldn’t just affect the concert goers but, by definition, all those exposed to the concert goers.&lt;p&gt;Amusingly, the above refers more to interventional studies - those with more than one arm. This doesn’t really have a control arm, or randomized assignment of people to exposure. It’s effectively an observational study - the sort of thing you don’t need to intentionally construct, but for the fact that people seem to not be going to concerts.&lt;p&gt;So... did they have to construct concerts artificially because not enough were occurring naturally? Did they have to create a harm that didn’t exist to begin with? Will it even be insightful? They filtered for the young, which specifically ensures there’s less of a chain of transmission available.&lt;p&gt;Considering Germany inspired so much of modern medical ethics work, it’s ironic to see them conduct such a study. I honestly wouldn’t have expected it.&lt;p&gt;I’m sure the relevant experts and authorities beat these questions to death, but even so, I’d be awfully curious to see those deliberations and what justifications were ultimately considered adequate.</text></item><item><author>darkerside</author><text>What has happened to us as people that studies like this have become so rare? We can&amp;#x27;t understand this virus without taking on some level of risk.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>swimik</author><text>This study was not about observing infections or exposing people, it was about movement and interaction patterns. Every single participant was tested before the event, and only those with negative results were allowed to participate. Of course it&amp;#x27;s not risk free, but it seems to be highly unlikely that anyone of the volunteers will be harmed (especially since they are all younger than 50).</text></comment>