‘Vladimir Chekhonin, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, claimed Russia was flouting the Nuremberg Code on human experimentation.’
PRESIDENTIAL spokesman Harry Roque clarified during his press briefing on Saturday that President Duterte is not backing off from his offer to be the first Filipino to receive the Russian vaccine.
“Hindi po siya nag-back out kung hindi sinabi lang po ng DOST na ang kauna-unahang pagkakataon na pupuwede siyang magpaturok ay May 1 ‘no pagkatapos po ng third stage o third phase ng clinical trial nagagawin po dito sa Maynila at sa Moscow,” Roque said.
So there it is: Dear Courageous Leader is courageous as ever.
This is despite doubts being cast on the Russian COVID-19 vaccine by Russian scientists themselves.
On August 13, United Kingdom’s the Daily Mail ran a story about Russia’s top respiratory doctor quitting over alleged “gross violations” of medical ethics on the coronavirus vaccine that Russian President Vladimir Putin is pushing.
The Daily Mail story said “Professor Alexander Chuchalin quit the Russian health ministry’s ethics council after making a fierce attack on the new Sputnik V drug ahead of the body approving its registration.”
The article quoted Dr. Chuchalin: “‘I am depressed by the position of some of our scientists who make irresponsible statements about ready-made vaccines.”
Chuchalin identified Prof. Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, and Prof. Sergey Borisevich, a medical colonel and Russian army’s top virologist as “the two men were the leading academics behind the new ‘world-beating’ vaccine.”
The report quoted Chuchalin, who created the Russian Research Institute of Pulmonology, and is head of the Department of Hospital Therapy, at the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University as saying: “Therefore, our number one task is to extract scientific data based on evidence-based medicine in order to understand that the action performed by scientists will not harm a person.”
The report said “Russia has made the vaccine race a matter of national prestige and has named the product ‘Sputnik V’ after the former Soviet space satellites, prompting fears that safety will be compromised for the sake of Russia’s image.”
The report also said that Putin said one of his daughters had been given the vaccine and had suffered no side effects worse than a high temperature. “She’s feeling well and has a high number of antibodies,” he boasted.
Chuchalin said in the Daily Mail story it is vital to know “the effect of the vaccine in the longer term,” adding that “the fact is that there are a number of biological substances that do not manifest themselves immediately, but only after a year or two.”
The Daily Mail quoted another leading scientist, Vladimir Chekhonin, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, accusing his fellow scientists of rushing the vaccine as “flouting the Nuremberg Code on human experimentation and the country’s own laws in human clinical research involved in Covid-19 vaccine testing.”
He expressed concern about the use of serving military personnel as recipients of the vaccine.
Vladimir Chekhonin, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, claimed Russia was flouting the Nuremberg Code on human experimentation.
“We cannot conduct experiments on humans. …This is a gross violation of the international Nuremberg Code. We are just making fools of ourselves with this early vaccine that can bring us a lot of trouble,” the immunologist was quoted to have said.
The Nuremberg Code was laid
