(04-24-2020, 07:20 AM)robkelk Wrote: While SARS-COV-2 is new, SARS as a family of virii is not. I suspect the "it's new so we can't do animal testing" excuse doesn't hold water, but I'm not a biologist of any sort.
The problem is that just because we know the family doesn't mean that we automatically know which species are good test subjects. It's not so much 'it's new so we can't do animal testing' as it's 'it's so new we don't know which animals are cost effective to test or give a response to this virus and anything we can use to treat the disease it creates that we can accurately translate to humans. Never you mind both'.
What you are basically saying is 'dogs are canine, wolves are canine, hyenas are canine, dingoes are canine and coyote are canine, so the way I treat my well trained and domesticated lap dog will work exactly the same for all those other canines'. And that's presuming SARS-COV-2 is that closely related, because in microbiotics, like bacteria and virus', figuring out how closely related two different subjects are can be quite difficult. The problem with the common cold is that it's actually a massive range of different pathogens, not all of which are closely related to other pathogens that are none the less dropped under the title of 'common cold'.
(04-24-2020, 07:20 AM)robkelk Wrote: And if a vaccine is released without testing, I will insist that the people who allowed it to be released without testing be the first to receive it.
The situation is not to the point that the various medicine safety organisations have waived all safety systems. What they've done is waive for one stage of safety trials for some of the vaccines under development. In any sensible system that means that when they proceed to human trials the test groups are even more thoroughly monitored than usual because of the increased risk.