Lately, there’s been much buzz in the news about an unorthodox way of finding a vaccine for COVID-19: human challenge trials. Whereas plenty of articles have debated whether human challenge trials should be legal, this article focuses on whether we have a moral duty to participate in them. The goal here isn’t to single-handedly answer this complex moral question, but rather to provide two frameworks we can use to help us arrive at our own answers.

What exactly is a human challenge trial? In short, it’s an alternative way of approaching Phase 3 — the human trial stage — in a vaccine’s approval process. A regular human trial entails vaccinating some participants, but not others. Then, all participants would more or less go about their daily lives. If someone happens to contract the disease, the effects of the vaccine can be observed. If not, then we don’t learn anything new. As you can imagine, the usual way of approving a vaccine takes months to years.

On the other hand, a human challenge trial means directly injecting coronavirus into a small group of human participants. This way, we are guaranteed to find the effectiveness of potential vaccines. It would very likely speed things up. In fact, it’s been argued that because human challenge trials will help us find a COVID-19 vaccine much faster, tens of thousands of lives will be saved. 

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