Russia is desperate for a vaccine against the coronavirus, but skepticism that dates back to the Soviet era means people don’t trust Putin’s quick-fix miracle cure.
MOSCOW— Vladimir Putin has registered the world’s first state-approved vaccine against the coronavirus and probably expected congratulations—at least at home—for winning the global race for a vaccine, but even Russians aren’t so sure this is a good idea.
Epidemiologists, pharmacologists, and doctors in Russia have responded to the alleged breakthrough with skepticism, and they certainly aren’t lining up to be injected first.
Many fear it is dangerous to open the vaccine to the public weeks before the third-stage trials are completed. The whole enterprise evokes Soviet-era scientific experimentation which included many great advances but sometimes carried a deadly price tag, from botched vaccines and accidental leaks from weapons labs, to the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.
To promote the world-first vaccine, Putin has boasted that one of his own daughters was among the first to volunteer. The authorities want thousands more Russians aged between 18 and 60 to follow suit.
The Daily Beast asked Russian doctors, scientists, business leaders, artists, housewives, and pensioners whether they would dare to take the untested, but potentially life-saving vaccine.
The president of the Russian Society of Evidence-based Medicine, Dr. Vasily Vlasov, said he had no plans to use the vaccine, nor would he recommend it to his friends or family. He sounded frustrated, explaining that there was no way to examine any of the findings from the first two stages of the trials. “They announced the vaccine was ready; but the creators still have not published the actual results of their research,” he said. “Everything is based on some unclear protocols and the longer they delay publishing, the more doubts people will have.”
The research looked a lot like a secret military operation from the start. The vaccine, created by a team of experts from the Russian Defense Ministry and the Gamaleya Institute, is called Sputnik V, in honor of the Cold War-era space-race winning satellite, which has also given its name to one of Russia’s leading state-operated propaganda news sites.
Leading epidemiologists and a trade group for medical experiments, the Russian Association of Clinical Trials, publicly urged the Kremlin to delay the vaccine’s registration, but they were ignored. Some scientists warned that it was possible Sputnik V could even make the disease more virulent in those who have been vaccinated. Read More
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