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In the movie Contagion, a researcher from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention goes rogue after seeing that a vaccine candidate has worked in a monkey. She injects herself with the formula and then goes to visit her father, who is hospitalized with the fictional virus MEV-1, to expose herself to the pathogen. She doesn’t fall ill, and the success of her risky act accelerates the rollout of a vaccine against the virus.
Contagion fans have noted a number of parallels between the movie’s fictional disease and COVID-19, and deliberate exposure to test a vaccine’s efficacy may be the next one. Some researchers are advocating for a more systematic version of the film’s approach, and the idea is gaining traction. The World Health Organization released guidelines last week on how such “challenge trials” might be conducted, and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) ...
