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Clinical Trials 101

The last few months have demonstrated that we all need to understand the process to approve medical treatments. The body is a complex organism and it is not always easy to determine why we get better or worse. Is it a "natural" trend? Did I actually recover faster? Did it prevent other symptoms? Did it have any side effects? The list of questions is endless. A clinical trial is a process that is used to answer these and other related questions. Essentially it is a planned experiment designed to remove biases and determine the efficacy (effectiveness) of a treatment. It requires that we assess the outcomes in a statistically significant number of comparable individuals. Conclusions are driven by statistics, with no room for anecdotal evidence.  Individuals are selected at random. Control is established by grouping people based on the stage of illness, and ideally similar or no concurrent illness. Additionally,  outcomes can be influenced by the patient or the investigator'...
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Vaccines 101

We are all waiting for a Covid-19 vaccine. There are high expectations on the timing and distribution of such a vaccine. This short blog is a primer based on my recent learnings. Hope it will help you navigate all the information to correctly set your expectations. Immunity is the ability of our body to recognize a germ and rapidly create immunity cells that release antibodies. The antibodies neutralize the invader and mark it for disposal. The immune army disbands when all the invaders have been eliminated. This operation needs to take place rapidly (within a day) for the body to be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. When a new germ is encountered the body is not able to do this quickly and the germ can enter our cells, replicate and disrupt normal body functions. Once the body has successfully eliminated a germ, the long-lasting impact is that it recognizes the germ when it appears next and can react rapidly to remove it within a day. A vaccine is a controlled mechanism to trick the...
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