
Photo by Erin Nelson.
John Gentle, a volunteer for the COVID-19 medical trial, at his home in Vestavia Hills.
After serving in Iraq as one of the soldiers tasked with discovering whether the Middle Eastern nation actually had weapons of mass destruction, Vestavia Hills resident John Gentle already has experience with the fear of dying.
So, when Gentle heard about the possibility of a human challenge trial, in which a group of people will be injected with the COVID-19 virus and half of them given a possible vaccine and the other half a placebo, he wasn’t scared to sign up.
“The fear I had of dying in the Middle East outweighs this every day,” Gentle said.
A human challenge trial provides researchers an opportunity to test possible vaccines for COVID-19, which has killed more than 100,000 Americans, on human subjects. While the study has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Gentle is prepared if and when he gets that call, saying he will not live in fear.
Gentle first heard about the trial after a friend sent him an article about it in March. He realized that he was healthy and that his line of work, in which he travels across the country helping set up information technology and accounting services for businesses in the produce industry, made it hard for him to avoid likely exposure.
“Short of a vaccine, there’s really no way I will not come in contact with it [COVID-19],” Gentle said. “My customers will keep working.”
Gentle signed up for the trial. Trials of this kind often end up taking advantage of low-income, high-risk individuals, whether they mean to or not, because there’s often a financial incentive to participate, something that doesn’t motivate higher earners, he said.
“The lower classes in society should not bear the risk for all of society all the time,” Gentle said.
Gentle is no stranger to taking risks for others. In Iraq, he worked with counterintelligence officers and others looking for weapons of mass destruction, as well as other missions, such as trying to find a missing pilot that was possibly being held captive.
“We were hired guns,” Gentle said.
At that time, Gentle wasn’t married and realized he was in a position to take risks for others. “I think a lot of people do it ... to take risks for the rest of society,” he said.
As he plans to possibly put his life on the line again, Gentle realizes the effect this trial could have.
The trial has the potential to decrease the time the world must wait for a COVID-19 vaccine, he said. Looking at worldwide numbers, developing a vaccine even one day earlier than anticipated could save 7,000 to 8,000 lives.
The work right now is to convince legislators and the FDA to approve the study, and to educate the general public about what exactly the challenge is, he said.
“If we had done this from day one ... we could have a vaccine out the door now,” Gentle said.
Even if, by the time the study gets approved, the need is so low that the trial doesn’t take place, it could still be useful to prepare for the next pandemic, Gentle said.
There are also conversations being held with organizations to fund the trial, as well as host it, Gentle said. There are obviously major liability concerns, but he said people are definitely interested, and drug companies are involved as well. Whichever company comes up with the vaccine stands to receive a financial boost, as well as massive growth in popularity and reputation.
Volunteers in the challenge would stay in a contained environment and be monitored constantly by doctors and medical staff, but they would not know going in whether they would receive the vaccine or a placebo, which is commonly used in medical studies.
Gentle said if he gets the disease, he feels confident he will come out just fine on the other side. “Why not get it in a controlled environment?” he said.
Gentle said while it would he terrible if he died, he feels his worst outcome is to be sick for one to two weeks. Yet, even if the worst should occur, Gentle said it’s something he has accepted.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take, but I’m not willing to sit around scared for the foreseeable future while somebody else takes the risk,” he said.