Seventeen people are voluntarily hosting parasitic worms in their bodies

Seventeen volunteers from the Netherlands have let worms from the genus Schistosoma into their bodies for twelve weeks. Why? To help develop the vaccine against schistosomiasis and to get the 1 200 $ reward.

© Hans Hillewaert / , via Wikimedia Commons

The already mentioned worms are quite nasty as they can cause many serious health issues like kidney failure, bladder cancer or even infertility. And in infected children, they can negatively influence growth and the ability to learn. A vaccine could potentially prevent many of these issues. But it has a small problem. Making the study is quite expensive, especially in the most affected areas like Sub-Saharan Africa or South America. And getting that money is no easy thing so you first need to prove you are actually working on such a vaccine.

This is where our seventeen volunteers come into play. Each of them has 20 male larvae in their body (so they cannot reproduce). And after the end of the testing period, they will be given the Praziquantel treatment that should kill the parasites. And if it shows that healthy young people can resist the parasite it might be proof that we have an easy to make and cheap way to test vaccines against schistosomiasis.

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It is necessary to make this type of sacrifice, to evolve medicine and thousands of people can be healed, horrible photo, excellent writing.

Yeah, the photo is horrifying I agree, but I wanted to convey how much of an sacrifice these guys are actual going through.

Otherwise, thank you very much :)

Are there any casualties or severe side effect which any of the volunteers had experienced throughout the study period? What about the ethical opinion of this study?

At the moment the study is still running so making conclusions about the side-effects cannot be made. As far as I know, so far there were only a few rashes and slight fever experienced.

And I do not know anything about the ethical opinion, but I'd assume as it got going it probably had to go through some ethical judgment.

I see. I mean the complication of that parasite infestation could be fatal. I wonder if 1200 USD is an insufficient amount compare to the risk imposed.

I understand your point.

But I'm not here to make such a judgment (and even if I did, it would be worth nothing as I am not a medical ethician). I just report on these things because I find them interesting.

I understand that.

(and even if I did, it would be worth nothing as I am not a medical ethician)

Professionally maybe, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion/judgement. You can make all judgement that you want. That's how you learn.