Malaria Vaccine Nearing Reality 209
colin_faber writes "Right on the heels of the Bill Gates BusinessWeek article discussing the importance of disease prevention and cure over technological deployment is news from CNN that U.S. researchers may have a viable vaccine for malaria. If true, this could change the lives of up to 3.3 billion people living in malaria danger zones and allow us to do away with this disease, which kills hundreds of thousands of people."
Do Away With This Disease? (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy
Affordable by those who need it
I would love to see this vaccine become a reality but I'm not very hopeful that this would have a price tag that many African nations could afford to give out to their populations for free or, if not free, the pennies the average citizen could afford. Mozambique, where I live and work, is VERY hard hit by Malaria but it's rural areas are very poor and the medicine distribution points in the CITIES struggle to keep vaccines refrigerated and properly handled. There is much development to be done in many of the nations who see high death rates from Malaria before we can use phrases like "allow us to do away with this disease". I do hope to see the disease done away with but let's not assume that with the development of the vaccine that that victory is imminent.
Re:African parent vs autism (Score:4, Insightful)
Until concerned parents boycott the vaccine because they think it causes autism.
I don't think that is going to be a big problem in Africa.
. . . where people allegedly believe raping virgins is a cure for AIDs [telegraph.co.uk]...?
Re:Woo (Score:5, Insightful)
Early days yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Having a vaccine that must be injected intravenously (not just intramuscularly), five times, in order to be effective is an interesting scientific advance (as stated in TFA), but isn't what one would call a practical solution to the malaria problem in the underdeveloped world (also as stated in TFA). Also keep in mind that many other proposed vaccines have looked good initially, but failed to pass muster later on, and that this trial was very, very small:
Researchers reported that the six volunteers who received five intravenous doses of the vaccine did not contract malaria when exposed to the microscopic parasite. Of the nine who received four doses, three contracted the disease. Of 12 who received no vaccine, 11 became infected.
It's a big stretch to go from six protected individuals to hundreds of millions, so I suggest that the champagne for the "End of Malaria" party not be put on ice just yet. While it is an interesting result, I think someone describing the status of the malaria vaccine as "nearing reality" isn't a very good judge of distance.
Re:African parent vs autism (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? Do you feel that Africans are, on average, more rational than Europeans and Americans?
More rational? No. More fearful of illness and/or death by malaria? Just a bit...
Medicine-related nonsense tends to flourish in the presence of at least one of two conditions: (1) the risk presented by a given disease is very low (the common cold is annoying but nearly harmless, so Airborne(tm) "Invented by a schoolteacher!" doesn't have to worry about any unpleasant testimonials involving dead customers, as long as it doesn't kill them itself...) (2) Conventional medicine has few answers, or very bad news, for you. (If the doctor says that there isn't much we can do, the odds that you'll go find somebody willing to tell you something more palatable just jumped rather markedly...)
American and European vaccine 'controversy' flourishes in the presence of both of these elements: the vaccines people worry about are for diseases that relatively few people have even seen/experienced in person (because vaccination mostly eradicated them) and which are seen as very low risk, while the fears and quackery bubble around autism, a condition for which present medical expertise's ability to help is rather severely lacking.
When it comes to diseases that actually scare them, Americans and Europeans have relatively high compliance rates, even with treatments that are well known to be quite unpleasant and dangerous (chemo, major surgery, antiretrovirals, etc, etc.).
why don't they (Score:5, Insightful)
why don't they instead find a way to get rid of the fscking mosquitoes ?
Malaria isn't the only disease spread by them, athough it might be the biggest killer
and they affect many other parts of the world besides Africa.
Re:Most Africans are pretty sensible people (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually it is a tribal thing, it has nothing to do with religion.
If you are trying to hold up people who believe a 2000 year old jew is the son of god and he magically came back to life 3 days after his execution as rational I am afraid I simply can't agree.
Re:African parent vs autism (Score:3, Insightful)
This is good health policy. "There is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%." - WHO (http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/)
bull-fucking-shit. The study 'proving' that is widely criticized for being botched, eg people who got circumsized were also taught some sex ed, while uncircumsized guys were left to their devices.
Besides, all the benefits vanish if people fuck twice as much and don't bother with rubber because they think they are safe. Hell, down there they still think rubber is not necessary if you can find a virgin or 2.
Dowsett et al. urged caution over using circumcision as a HIV prevention strategy saying that there were still questions that needed to be answered: "We need to investigate the effects of those other social and contextual factors that will be in play in real world settings – because the effectiveness of male circumcision will not be generated by the efficacy of the surgery alone." He contrasts the preventative effect of circumcision taken from the RCT's (55%) with the preventative effect of condoms (80-90%). He criticises the fact that the trials were not double-blinded - the participants knew their circumcision status and so this could have affected how the men responded behaviourally, psychologically and sexually. He criticised the randomisation measures used in the trial: sexual practices (number of partners, condom use) and sexual health measures (presence of STIs), saying that "Effective measures were not used, and differences related to sexual subjectivity, such as sexual network participation, pleasure preferences, body image, sexual history effects (e.g. abuse), partner preferences (younger, older, peers, groups) and so on were never assessed or analysed." He also asks how the extensive counselling and education might have influenced the participants' sexual activity. He adds that "all participants were subject to regular monitoring (e.g. behaviour surveys, clinical check-ups), which clearly might have enhanced compliance with suggested safety regimes and lowered risk-taking during the follow-up period. Such compliance cannot be guaranteed in real world settings." He also said the trials were subject to the Hawthorne effect.[23]
not to mention that if you found by chance that circumcision of females cures cancer and solves the problem of world hunger you'd still get feminists and UN screaming bloody murder and how women have a right to bodily autonomy. Cutting dicks by millions? No problem.
Re:Most Africans are pretty sensible people (Score:0, Insightful)
No, Americans just believe in male genital mutilation.
In fact, this is such an extreme knee-jerk rage topic for them that the very existence of somebody who even calls it that causes a explosion of hissy fits in them that will probably cause this comment to be downmodded into oblivion.
Been there. Many times.
And they call the Africans savages...
Re:Early days yet (Score:5, Insightful)
who the hell volunteers to be infected by Malaria?
Heros. Not cape-wearing crime-fighting heros like you find in comic books, but real heros that put themselves in danger to advance mankind. When you meet the uneducated African sustenance farmer who volunteered to be exposed to Malaria, you should treat his as you would treat Cook [wikipedia.org], or Armstrong [wikipedia.org], or Bouazizi [wikipedia.org]
Re:Most Africans are pretty sensible people (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:African parent vs autism (Score:2, Insightful)
Hell, go on a chloroquinine regime to protect yourself from malaria and let me know how you appreciate the side affects. Night terrors, demetia, and a whole lot worse are all yours for the experience! But it'll keep you from malaria, which makes it one hell of a better option. Still, it's amazing to me that in the case of malaria, a vaccine that outright killed 1 in a hundred would still be an order of magnitude better than the mortality of the ongoing disease. What a terrible parasite. Scourge of humanity.
Cost of malaria to society (Score:5, Insightful)
So now Africa will have 600,000 more people a year to feed, house, and clothe, and they can't even do that now.
Your argument is badly flawed.
That's 600,000 more people that can work and contribute to society. Millions more who don't have to languish in hospitals instead of working or studying because they are sick. Countries that eliminate malaria have been shown to have a 5X increase [wikipedia.org] in GDP per capita. Malaria is estimated to cost Africa $12 billion per year due to lost productivity, lost education, health care costs, reduced tourism, and reduced investment. Think that $12 billion per year might feed and clothe a few people? (That's $20,000 per person per year in a region where the average GDP per capita is presently around $1,900)
Re:Most Africans are pretty sensible people (Score:3, Insightful)
I fail to see how removal of the foreskin on a male equates at all to the complete removal of the clitoris.
If you somehow think they're the same, I suggest you consult a good anatomy chart or get in therapy with a competent shrink, whichever your state of mind requires - ignorance in the case of the former, gross perceptual distortion in the latter.
But I may have missed your thrust, in which case my apologies and forward the foregoing to whom it applies.
I abhor the kind of thinking - non-thinking, really - that somehow can rail against male circumcision yet manage to see clitorectomy as female circumcision and thus somehow fitting into a cultural-multiplicity worldview. So-called "female circumcision" as practised if applied to males would require at least the removal of the glans.
Re:Do Away With This Disease? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, if Gates' foundation can beat Malaria, he should get a Nobel prize, a sainthood, a world-wide annual holiday in his honour, and his face carved on Mt Rushmore.