Dr Michael Mosley refused to be willingly infected with Coronavirus despite previously having swallowed tapeworm eggs. As part of a trailblazing study, which examined how Covid-19 works in our bodies, 36 healthy young adults signed up to catch the virus on purpose.
Explaining his decision not to get involved in the study, Dr Mosley wrote in the Daily Mail: "I have taken part in some unpleasant and sometimes painful experiments myself, such as deliberately swallowing tapeworm eggs so that scientists at Liverpool University could study the impact of the worm on my immune system."
While it sounds revolting, Dr Mosley says: "Apart from the initial repugnance when swallowing the eggs, I barely noticed they were there until I saw pictures from a pill camera I swallowed months later."
Another medical study the health guru took part in saw Dr Mosley injected with psilocybin - the active ingredient in 'magic mushrooms', which is being explored as a treatment for depression. He described the experience as being similar to "that moment in Star Trek when the spaceship goes into hyper-drive; the walls of the scanner dissolved and I took off to the stars."
Despite these studies, Dr Mosley writes he would never have agreed to be infected with Covid-19 early in the pandemic as the 36 human guinea pigs did in a bid for researchers to understand the virus better. Dr Mosley added: "I'm not sure I would have agreed to being infected with Covid-19, particularly early on when we knew so little about it — though I'm glad others were prepared to do so."
The trial was carried out at the Royal Free Hospital in London in February 2021 and the latest results have just been published in The Lancet Microbe. Describing the approach, the doctor and documentary-maker said: "It was a type of trial called a 'human challenge study' — and deliberately infecting healthy volunteers can be a really good way to study exactly how novel viruses spread and how they can be treated."
This approach is highly controversial, but the volunteers were well informed about the risks of the study. The study proved hugely helpful information in the battle against Covid-19 by proving lateral flow tests were an very reliable way of confirming your infection status and masks were effective at stopping its spread.
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Only half sprayed up the nose with the virus ended up getting Covid, suggesting they had some sort of immunity, and none became particularly ill. However, two did become so called 'super-spreaders' - confirming to scientists that a small number of people were responsible for the majority of infections.
