US Prepares For Bird Flu Pandemic With $176 Million Moderna Vaccine Deal 184
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US government will pay Moderna $176 million to develop an mRNA vaccine against a pandemic influenza -- an award given as the highly pathogenic bird flu virus H5N1 continues to spread widely among US dairy cattle. The funding flows through BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, as part of a new Rapid Response Partnership Vehicle (RRPV) Consortium. The program is intended to set up partnerships with industry to help the country better prepare for pandemic threats and develop medical countermeasures, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a press announcement Tuesday.
In its own announcement on Tuesday, Moderna noted that it began a Phase 1/2 trial of a pandemic influenza virus vaccine last year, which included versions targeting H5 and H7 varieties of bird flu viruses. The company said it expects to release the results of that trial this year and that those results will direct the design of a Phase 3 trial, anticipated to begin in 2025. The funding deal will support late-stage development of a "pre-pandemic vaccine against H5 influenza virus," Moderna said. But, the deal also includes options for additional vaccine development in case other public health threats arise.
US health officials have said previously that they were in talks with Moderna and Pfizer about the development of a pandemic bird flu vaccine. The future vaccine will be in addition to standard protein-based bird flu vaccines that are already developed. In recent weeks, the health department has said it is working to manufacture 4.8 million vials of H5 influenza vaccine in the coming months. The plans come three months into the H5N1 dairy outbreak, which is very far from the initial hopes of containment. [...] The more the virus expands its footprint across US dairy farms, adapts to its newfound mammalian host, and comes in contact with humans, the more and more chances it has to leap to humans and gain the ability to spread among us. "The award made today is part of our longstanding commitment to strengthen our preparedness for pandemic influenza," said Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for Preparedness and Response. "Adding this technology to our pandemic flu toolkit enhances our ability to be nimble and quick against the circulating strains and their potential variants."
In a separate article, Ars Technica reports on a small study in Texas that suggests human cases are going undetected on dairy farms where the H5N1 virus has spread in cows.
In its own announcement on Tuesday, Moderna noted that it began a Phase 1/2 trial of a pandemic influenza virus vaccine last year, which included versions targeting H5 and H7 varieties of bird flu viruses. The company said it expects to release the results of that trial this year and that those results will direct the design of a Phase 3 trial, anticipated to begin in 2025. The funding deal will support late-stage development of a "pre-pandemic vaccine against H5 influenza virus," Moderna said. But, the deal also includes options for additional vaccine development in case other public health threats arise.
US health officials have said previously that they were in talks with Moderna and Pfizer about the development of a pandemic bird flu vaccine. The future vaccine will be in addition to standard protein-based bird flu vaccines that are already developed. In recent weeks, the health department has said it is working to manufacture 4.8 million vials of H5 influenza vaccine in the coming months. The plans come three months into the H5N1 dairy outbreak, which is very far from the initial hopes of containment. [...] The more the virus expands its footprint across US dairy farms, adapts to its newfound mammalian host, and comes in contact with humans, the more and more chances it has to leap to humans and gain the ability to spread among us. "The award made today is part of our longstanding commitment to strengthen our preparedness for pandemic influenza," said Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for Preparedness and Response. "Adding this technology to our pandemic flu toolkit enhances our ability to be nimble and quick against the circulating strains and their potential variants."
In a separate article, Ars Technica reports on a small study in Texas that suggests human cases are going undetected on dairy farms where the H5N1 virus has spread in cows.
Coming Soon! (Score:3, Funny)
Pandemic 2: Avian Bugaloo.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bird Flu Pandemic is the one they have been planning for over the past decade or so, COVID was just the first opportunity to try the planned approach out...
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure it's actually wrong though. I'm certain that SOME people have been working on bird flu vaccines for a long time. And it's definitely true that mRNA vaccine research has been going on for decades. Usually, though, the pace of this research has been "dead slow", because of not much funding. The reason that the COVID vaccines could be built so quickly was because of work that had been done on SARS earlier.
Re: (Score:2)
mRNA vaccines were developed with Avian Flu in mind, because the current flu vaccine manufacturing relies on chicken eggs, which do not work with Avian Flu because it kills the egg
The lack of development was due to the private vaccine manufacturers not wanting to invest in new techniques when the existing ones were making them lots of money
The US government has been the primary funding source for mRNA manufacturing techniques
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not sure it's actually wrong though. I'm certain that SOME people have been working on bird flu vaccines for a long time. And it's definitely true that mRNA vaccine research has been going on for decades. Usually, though, the pace of this research has been "dead slow", because of not much funding. The reason that the COVID vaccines could be built so quickly was because of work that had been done on SARS earlier.
That's not what "plandemic" means though. There's a difference between the idea that a bunch of academics are doing good work planning for some future event and the suggestion that health authorities are planning to use misrepresentation of an unimportant pandemic in order to impose authoritarian restrictions on people. It's the second thing which is problematic because it misunderstands how corruption and other problems get into social responses.
Re: (Score:2)
Not a cheap shot, I worked in an industry that the US government required do pandemic planning starting in 2006.
Re: (Score:2)
I think he means they've been preparing for flu for a long time, and those preparations proved useful for COVID -- not that they had been engineering a flu superbug. That makes no sense anyway, because they'd have released their engineered flu superbug, not some completely unrelated coronavirus.
I worked in public health informatics for years, and I can confirm public health people have been worried about the emergence of a influenza superbug all along. That's because it's a statistical inevitability. Eve
Re: Coming Soon! (Score:2)
You say they were planning/preparing for years, then why were so many states caught ill-equipped for COVID? One well-known example is that NY state sold off all their ventilators a year or two before COVID-19 - sounds like they gave up preparing.
2020 reporting of 2015 sell-off:
https://thehill.com/homenews/s... [thehill.com]
2023 reporting of another sell-off:
https://nypost.com/2023/02/21/... [nypost.com]
So with the sell-off they are preparing for the next flu/virus? Awesome.
Re: (Score:2)
Planning for, not planning.
Being proactive? (Score:2)
The government is actually doing something proactive? Color me surprised. Clearly there's either going to be abuse or some political party will call it fear mongering and completely defund it two years before we're all wondering where to bury all the people infected with H5N1.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The government is actually doing something proactive?
It's not the first time. The Obama administration created a pandemic response unit which produced a pandemic playbook [documentcloud.org] in 2016.
Re: (Score:3)
Obama? The threat of a pandemic was well known in Washington before that.
George W. Bush in 2005: 'If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare' [go.com]
Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005. "Today, I am announcing key elements of that strategy. Our strategy is designed to meet three critical goals: First, we must detect outbreaks that occur anywhere in the world; second, we must protect the American people by stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, and improve our ability to rapidly produce new va
Re: (Score:2)
Different diseases *do* have different modes of spreading. If the mode is via surface contact to ingestion, then cleaning your hands all the time is a pretty good answer. If it's spread through the air, that doesn't work. It also doesn't work if it depends on access via an open wound. (I'm thinking tetanus here.)
FWIW, I've got no idea how swine flu spread(s), so I don't know whether "I wash my hands all the time" is plausibly sufficient.
Re: (Score:2)
I caught 2008 swine flu at the Footscray Market (indoor fruit and vegetable markets as well as butchers and fishmongers). I believe it was airborne.
Re:Being proactive? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the first time. The Obama administration created a pandemic response unit which produced a pandemic playbook in 2016.
Yes and then Demented Clown (Trump) threw the playbook in the trash, making Covid far worse than it had to be.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Being proactive? (Score:4)
Either present proof or just drown yourself in your imagined "conspiracies".
Re:Being proactive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the problem is H5N1 has transitioned to humans. It was originally confined to birds, so we'd have programs at farms to contain sick birds.
But then it jumped to cows, and now cows were getting sick. And from that, humans were getting sick from handling the sick cows.
We do know it does not survive cooking, so even if an infected animal went to slaughter, as long as you cooked the beef (no steak tartare) you would be fine so no issues with the food chain.
But those sick people, they currently quarantine them so they don't infect others with it. So far we have not seen human to human transmission, just bird to cow and cow to human.
The hope is those who handle cows would get vaccinated so they'd not have to quarantine or not mutate the virus so it transfers from human to human. (Knowing where cows are raised, fat chance....). But maybe it might happen - farmers would want to isolate sick cows and they would prefer their healthy cows not get infected. Worst thing that they would want is to have an outbreak on the farm and then everyone scared to buy their cows and beef for fear of getting sick (even though I said it doesn't survive cooking). Might be interesting to see it played out - the anti-vaxxers vs. keeping the cattle farm.
So far though, it's just like the flu, so it's just as deadly
Re: (Score:2)
We do know it does not survive cooking, so even if an infected animal went to slaughter, as long as you cooked the beef (no steak tartare) you would be fine so no issues with the food chain.
Could you get the flu from eating the raw meat of a sick animal? Seems unlikely a respiratory virus would survive in the human the GI tract.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it only has to pass the bronchial tubes and the lungs to reach the gut where those miraculous gut bacteria can save us.
Re: (Score:3)
The hope is those who handle cows would get vaccinated so they'd not have to quarantine or not mutate the virus so it transfers from human to human. (Knowing where cows are raised, fat chance....).
There is a difference between farmers and kooks. Most all are pretty smart. And surprisingly "progressive". You can go by farms here and see good sized solar arrays, and they like to keep their stock healthy. Profit margins are slim enough, and a cow is worth enough, they are likely phoning their ag agent daily to see the progress of this.
Seconded. (Score:2)
Hell, half the country (and I have to admit, typically the younger, more progressive thinking types) have been giving farmers hell about "pumping livestock full of antibiotics". As a group, ranchers and farmers are huge fans of this kind of science. They're not into being sick, and they're not into letting disease kill their stock in trade.
The problem is that some people (and here the demographic does lean toward rural rather than urban) listen to uneducated opinions. They prefer what they hear from pol
Re: (Score:3)
Hell, half the country (and I have to admit, typically the younger, more progressive thinking types) have been giving farmers hell about "pumping livestock full of antibiotics". As a group, ranchers and farmers are huge fans of this kind of science. They're not into being sick, and they're not into letting disease kill their stock in trade.
The problem is that some people (and here the demographic does lean toward rural rather than urban) listen to uneducated opinions. They prefer what they hear from politicians and theologians to the less-pleasing facts which scientists provide.
Living near rural areas, I gotta say you are correct about the uneducated types. There's a bit more to it as well. Many of those people, especially the MAGAs, are not capable of getting along with normal people. So they often live in the country because of that. You get the person who has the rotting carcasses of every car and washer and dryer they ever had in their front yard, and there's a better than even chance they have a Trump banner in their yard. Some others are neater and live in a nicer place, but
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fun fact, cows (vaccas) are actually the root word for vaccine.
Re: (Score:2)
First you've got to get SOME vaccine. Vaccines are specific to one particular disease, often to one strain of a disease. We don't have one that works for this even for mice. (And if it *really* adapts to cows, you can be certain that it will adapt to mice to have a reservoir. They'd be nearly ideal vectors.)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Being proactive? (Score:2)
6G this time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Usually people dread an "October Surprise" before an election ... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Being proactive? (Score:5, Informative)
1. We realized the virus was only about as deadly as the flu.
At the height of the pandemic in 2021, covid killed over 450,000 people in the US alone.
The flu averages around 12,000 per year but was greatly reduced that year to the point where one strain of flu went extinct [nih.gov].
But do go on. Tell us how they're the same.
2. The vaccine did fuck all to prevent catching and spreading the virus.
The vaccine reduced the severity and lengths of infections, which lead to less spreading of the virus by vaccinated vs unvaccinated. This is easily verified by looking at the infection rate data of countries that had good access and uptake of the vaccine and comparing it to countries where access was limited or uptake was low.
You are, indeed, immune to statistics and reality but then I'm sure you "did your own research" by reading Facebook posts while ignoring actual data.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Being proactive? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. We realized the virus was only about as deadly as the flu.
God, I'm so sick and tired of that BS argument. Let me quote at actual study on the impact of COVID-19:
For the elderly, influenza and the associated pneumonia are the 12th largest cause of death. That's not harmless in any way. Comparing the actual lethality numbers, only for Hawaii they are in the same ballpark. For all other states they are at least off by a factor of 3. That's despite all the restrictions and provisions applied during COVID-19, unlike regular influenza season.
Re:Being proactive? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's COVID's lower mortality rate than MERS - well higher than influenza but well lower than MERS - that allowed it to escape detection until it had already gotten well established in a population. MERS would always have had a much harder time with that.
What I worry most about is not anything that's immediately deadly. I worry about diseases with a long period between infection and severe consequences. Which for some diseases can be years. Nobody is going to keep society locked down for years over some latent infection (if we even know there's latent infection - there's *still* debate over COVID's ability to persist in a latent state, though it appears the answer is very probably "no"), given how many pathogens we already harbour latent in our bodies. But you don't get to learn about the long-term consequences of any given pathogen until said long-term has already passed. Some immunocompromised or unlucky individuals might see an earlier progression of symptoms, but we can see from COVID that people will readily just dismiss that as "unlucky people", "people with preexisting health problems", etc.
Pathogens can create long-term immune dysfunction (including fatal), cause cancers, cause neurodegenerative diseases, and a vast range of other things that don't show up immediately. Every new pathogen that we let rip through the population is a roll of the dice.
Re: (Score:2)
t's COVID's lower mortality rate than MERS - well higher than influenza but well lower than MERS - that allowed it to escape detection until it had already gotten well established in a population. MERS would always have had a much harder time with that.
MERS was not nearly as contagious though, which also made corralling it easier. If MERS has been as easily spread as COVID I don't think it ever would have been contained as it was.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the regulatory apparatus is "proactive". The whole idea behind the Fed. agencies like OSHA is to prevent industry accidents.
However, as soon a companies figure out the Supreme Court ruling that claims Congress needs to spell out all the unintended consequences of their laws and specifically grant a particular Fed. agency to power to police that specific consequence, then the agencies will cease to be proactive and will merely be tools of the court system to slap companies after peoples' lives have b
Re: (Score:2)
Hello, idiot, it's already spreading. It just hasn't adapted to people yet. It's bad enough that it's already causing events to be altered, perhaps cancelled. (I'm thinking particularly 4-fairs here.)
Currently it looks as it it spreads by surface contacts, though, so for this one washing your hands enough may protect you.
Re: (Score:2)
Currently it looks as it it spreads by surface contacts, though.
Do you know of actual evidence for this? With COVID it turned out that some doctors are terrified of being accused of believing in miasma theory and so avoid any scientific evidence of airborne transmission. Literature I see on a quick search suggests airborne is possible.
Societal change is required (Score:4, Insightful)
Based on the response to COVID and the US's mortality rate compared to similarly wealthy developed nations... you have to have people willing to take a vaccine for it to be effective. And ideally, people who won't do their best to act as a virus reservoir and deliberately infect everyone they can.
There also needs to be a global effort for major pandemic risks and a coordinated response. It doesn't matter if someone can't afford a vaccine or if they live in a different country - a virus will infect poor and foreign people too, and then you get more virus spreading around. That means a proper pandemic response needs to be a socialist response.
Whatever is done, it needs to be done hand in hand with education so people understand that viruses don't care about politics and conspiracy theories, and denial won't stop you from dying. There's also the middle-class morons who are 'spiritual' and think they know better than doctors.
There are several segments of society who behave irrationally and endanger their communities, and we need to find the will to use force on them even if it makes us uncomfortable - and that can mean having a talk about how to do that while impinging on people's rights as minimally as possible, but something has to happen.
Re:Societal change is required (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatever is done, it needs to be done hand in hand with education so people understand that viruses don't care about politics and conspiracy theories, and denial won't stop you from dying. There's also the middle-class morons who are 'spiritual' and think they know better than doctors.
There are several segments of society who behave irrationally and endanger their communities, and we need to find the will to use force on them even if it makes us uncomfortable - and that can mean having a talk about how to do that while impinging on people's rights as minimally as possible, but something has to happen.
The people you speak of are in a cult. The messiah who took credit for Operation Warp Speed https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com] told people they should take the vaccine which he helped create and was booed for it. https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
what a weird thing to say
Re: (Score:2)
There are several segments of society who behave irrationally and endanger their communities, and we need to find the will to use force on them even if it makes us uncomfortable - and that can mean having a talk about how to do that while impinging on people's rights as minimally as possible, but something has to happen.
When you piss away the states legitimacy by leveraging the states monopoly on violence on more than just outliers it is always one way or another society that suffers the consequences.
Re: (Score:2)
There are several segments of society who behave irrationally and endanger their communities....
Yes, like the ones who are dead set on saving people, even if it kills or maimes them. Take your authoritative regime, and shove it right up your fucking ass!
Re: (Score:3)
Based on the response to COVID and the US's mortality rate compared to similarly wealthy developed nations... you have to have people willing to take a vaccine for it to be effective.
When Covid first popped into prominence, and when a vaccine became available, I was concerned for everyone's health. But after all the bullshit, and the politicization of the vaccines, and the utter shitstorm about it...
I'll get my vaccines, and if someone else decides they won't - I don't care.
I simply do not care.
Re:Societal change is required (Score:5, Informative)
> if someone else decides they won't - I don't care.
Vaccines aren't 100% effective, and as a consequence herd immunity is an important concept.
You can get your shots and still get infected by your anti-vax neighbour. And there are people who have legitimate medical reasons they shouldn't risk a vaccine.
When you live in a community, you surrender some freedom to accommodate the collective good. Getting vaccinated is hardly a jackboot on your throat, and anyone who refuses vaccination without a valid medical exemption should be forced to take it or kicked out of the community from which they gain so much benefit.
Re: (Score:2)
> if someone else decides they won't - I don't care.
Vaccines aren't 100% effective, and as a consequence herd immunity is an important concept.
You can get your shots and still get infected by your anti-vax neighbour. And there are people who have legitimate medical reasons they shouldn't risk a vaccine.
When you live in a community, you surrender some freedom to accommodate the collective good. Getting vaccinated is hardly a jackboot on your throat, and anyone who refuses vaccination without a valid medical exemption should be forced to take it or kicked out of the community from which they gain so much benefit.
I get it, but it's hard to enforce that way. Frankly, the good part is that when they don't get the vax, and when they get ill and die, they are doing the world a favor. If it is some medical approach, my idea is to take an anti-vaxxer, if they catch Covid, make it illegal to treat them, and just put their bed in the morgue to make things more efficient.
I feel the same way about them dying as I figure people felt about sending the Japanese to their maker in WW2.
Re: (Score:3)
If you are vaccinated against a disease, you are IMMUNE. If that weren't true, there would be no eradicated diseases.
It's not entirely true. A vaccine simply exposes your immune system to a potential threat. How your immune system reacts to that threat depends on your immune system. Some people have naturally stronger immune systems, some people have weaker, and some people have immune systems that attack their own bodies.
Most vaccines are beneficial to most people, on average, statistically speaking, if the statistics were calculated accurately during clinical trials. But vaccines aren't magic, they're more like an early
Re: (Score:2)
"We all took sixth-grade science."
And some of us moved past that to 9th, 12th, college, etc. science.
Re: (Score:2)
So you tell lies professionally.
Not exactly a reliable source.
Re: (Score:2)
How cute you think your voice matters.
Re: Societal change is required (Score:2)
Shout all you want, this is not how it works. Vaccines reduce risks, which in turn helps eradicate diseases.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you provide evidence of a vaccine that provides immunity to a disease in 100% of cases as you imply? A link to Wikipedia will do.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know why you feel the need to be so antagonistic about this. Anyhow, from the CDC [cdc.gov]:
Historically, the vaccine has been effective in preventing smallpox infection in 95% of those vaccinated. In addition, the vaccine was proven to prevent or substantially lessen infection when given within a few days after a person was exposed to the variola virus.
Therefore this does not prove your claim that vaccines work in 100% of cases, but is in fact a counterexample. However that doesn't necessarily make you wrong, you can still provide an example of a vaccine that does work in 100% of cases.
Re: (Score:2)
It conclusively refutes the assertion that a vaccine is a treatment.
You are moving the goalpost. Nobody here made the claim that a vaccine is a treatment. Nonetheless, the CDC contradicts you here as well, it's in the second sentence I already quoted above:
In addition, the vaccine was proven to prevent or substantially lessen infection when given within a few days after a person was exposed to the variola virus.
But again, you are moving the goalpost. You made the claim that vaccines work 100% of the time:
If you are vaccinated against a disease, you are IMMUNE. If that weren't true, there would be no eradicated diseases.
If you are properly vaccinated you cannot contract the disease, therefore your "anti-vax neighbor" doesn't matter at all.
I pointed out that this is not true, and that they reduce risks without eradicating them, which in turn helps eradicate diseases. You claimed that vaccines have 100% effectiveness. That is the goalpost we are discussing. Then yo
Re: (Score:2)
The confidently wrong is strong in this one.
A vaccine primes your immune system to have a more vigorous response to the disease if/when it is encountered. That may entirely prevent infection or it may attenuate the severity of the infection. That is true of ALL vaccines. It's also true of acquired immunity. There are a few diseases that if you get them once you won't get it again, except sometimes you do.
Re: (Score:2)
"collective"! Welcome comrade, we have work for you.
I believe that an anti-Vaxxer has every right to refuse the vaccinres. I believe that since they made the consious choice, we should make the conscious choice to not treat them.
Don't like it? Freedom baby, you makes your choices as a person who walks free, and if you die because of that choice, I support your death as a positive thing.
Re: Societal change is required (Score:2)
With that kind of thinking, you end up not treating people for heart diseases because they didn't eat enough veggies.
We treat our weakest and stupidest, or we descend into fascism or social Darwinism one way or another. Sure someone who refused the vaccine shouldn't have priority over someone who didn't, but not treating people is barbaric.
Re: (Score:2)
With that kind of thinking, you end up not treating people for heart diseases because they didn't eat enough veggies.
We treat our weakest and stupidest, or we descend into fascism or social Darwinism one way or another. Sure someone who refused the vaccine shouldn't have priority over someone who didn't, but not treating people is barbaric.
The slope - it is so slippery. So your idea of priority achieves the same thing as you accuse me of. You just make the choice at a different time. And it gets a little complicated. There was a lawsuit because the family of anti-vaxxer who died who wanted A whopping dose of ivermectin called that malpractice when the hospital refused to use a treatment that doesn't work. Also, demanding a vaccine when at death's door - is that fascism as well?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think I accused you of anything, I was warning you about where this idea can lead. Now that being said, in cases where we need to decide who gets care first, a number of criteria comes into play. These decisions are already made, the question is what should inform them, I don't think it's controversial to mention refusal to get vaccinated as one of these criteria. And yes, you will always have weird silly cases, no matter what your policy is. They are a distraction.
The problem is, the vaccine is free. (Score:2)
You want people to want the vaccine, then make people pay. I'd be curious to see how many anti-vaxxers would suddenly insist on their right to be vaccinated - to borrow some old schtick, I'll bet they'd be as nervous as a bunch of Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
Oh, and make sure there's still a program so guys like me can get the shot. I, for one, still plan to die of old age. To hell with the rest of society.
Re:Societal change is required (Score:5, Insightful)
You can read and repeat numbers, but given what you are obviously trying to imply you don't UNDERSTAND the numbers.
That post just made you look stupid to anyone with half a brain. And not just regular stupid, but the kind of stupid that is proud and thinks its smarter than the non-stupid people around it and wants to stand up on a chair and shout to the room about what it 'knows'.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They already do.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health... [nbcnews.com]
Let's not find out (Score:2)
what Texans are doing with cows..
Re: (Score:2)
Just in time for the election! (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like we'll get mail-in ballots again
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like we'll get mail-in ballots again
Noting that eight states allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail, several for many years — California (2021), Colorado (2013), Hawaii (2019), Nevada (2021), Oregon (1998), Utah (2012), Vermont (2021) and Washington (2011) and the District of Columbia (2022).
Every voter receives a mail-in ballot by default. Voters may submit completed ballots by mail or deposit them at designated drop-boxes and drop-off locations. In-person voting is available to all voters at designated voter service and polling centers.
All-mail voting [ballotpedia.org]
All-Mail Voting States [lgbtmap.org]
States With Mostly-Mail Elections [ncsl.org]
Re:Just in time for the election! (Score:4, Informative)
In 2019 the republican controlled legislature in my state passed a law allowing mail in ballots. I’m happy for the convenience. Of course these same people sued to have the law that they created overturned but the judges told them to piss off.
Oregon has had mail in ballots for decades without a problem. It’s only a problem when some snowflakes lose.
Re:Just in time for the election! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. Studies have shown that they do not enable vote or voter fraud and that they enable a lot of people to vote who otherwise wouldn't be able to do it.
Voting day should be a national holiday. If it were, you might have a reasonable argument to make about not needing mail-in ballots, although it would still be ableist. I for one think that the bedridden should be able to vote if the nearly-bedridden with dozens of felonies can slather themselves in bronzer and run for president.
Re: (Score:2)
Good. Studies have shown that they do not enable vote or voter fraud and that they enable a lot of people to vote who otherwise wouldn't be able to do it.
Voting day should be a national holiday. If it were, you might have a reasonable argument to make about not needing mail-in ballots, although it would still be ableist. I for one think that the bedridden should be able to vote if the nearly-bedridden with dozens of felonies can slather themselves in bronzer and run for president.
Australia holds it's elections on a Saturday when most are not working. Voting takes about half an hour, longer if you filled out the entire tablecloth (senate voting form, used to be able to individually number your senators one to sixty-something).
The UK has polling stations open from 7am to 10pm and voting takes all of 5 mins.
Neither country has a problem with voter fraud, the biggest issue in recent days was when the Conservatives (Tories) instituted an ID requirement to combat the non-existent fr
Re:Just in time for the election! (Score:4, Funny)
And to think the only reason everyone went ape shit over Trump is the fact he promised to do something about average Americans who got screwed out of their jobs.
It's a never-ending flood of bullshit with you people, isn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We need a secured online voting system! Faster, easier, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
That rag is about as trustworthy as Weekly World News reporting on Batboy and Elvis. If you read the Ohio press release here is what really happened.
In May, the Secretary of State’s Public Integrity Division and Office of Data Analytics and Archives initiated a review of voter records for compliance with Ohio’s constitutional citizenship requirement. Using identification records provided by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV), the office found 136 voter registrations assigned to Ohio residen
A new highly pathogenic virus? (Score:2)
It is an election year, after all.
Bracing for the anti-vax jackasses.. (Score:2)
Can't wait to pay $120/dose for this booster (Score:2)
Pay for the vaccine's development and then pay for the profits of our investment! GO USA!!!
Who wants lockdowns again? Raise your hand. (Score:2, Insightful)
If given a choice between a shot versus being stuck, locked down for 3-6 months, all bars, eateries, and such not usable, businesses having to shut down because only the big guys got grants to continue, and add to that all the crap-throwing about making up... the shot is a lot easier to deal with than seeing even more small businesses be destroyed.
Don't forget supply chain disruption.
The only real reason jobs came back in 2020 was because 45 threw trillions into the market. One trillion went to Wall Street
Re: Who wants lockdowns again? Raise your hand. (Score:2)
I can't relate with you. I get refusing the vaccine. But refusing to wear a mask, What's the rationale?
Re:mRNA vaccines are bad (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah thrombosis is a real problem. There were multiple vaccines during COVID which caused and one of them so severe that it was pulled from the market for a while because it was an order of magnitude worse than the others.
Oh wait... that was the non mRNA vaccine which got pulled, turns the the mRNA ones were safer.
Re: (Score:3)
AstraZeneca withdraws Covid vaccine worldwide after admitting it can cause rare blood clots [independent.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
J&J was pulled for about 2 weeks due to concern over blood clots and then was ok'ed again. From what I remember, there were some patients that got blood clots after vaccination, so they shut it down until they figured out that the general population gets blood clots at the same rate so it was unlikely it was the vaccine.
My wife got the Pfizer shots and I was planning on getting that too, but they ran out and so I got J&J. It turns out she got Covid and had a very hard time. I didn't get it. Go f
Re: (Score:2)
Translation for those reading at home: gobble pharma dick or don't post.
I mean if the only actual real truth in the world comes from big pharma why wouldn't you gobble pharma dick? Seems more sane than whatever religion or false belief system you follow instead.
I'm going to assume "pharma dick" is just a euphemism for "science and statistics" and that you're too dumb to understand either, even when someone explains it to you in simple terms.
Re:mRNA vaccines are bad (Score:5, Interesting)
I think people would be better off with protein based vaccines than mRNA. The issue with mRNA is LNPs enable mRNA to enter any cell in the body which leads to avoidable damage/inflammation due to cells expressing proteins that make them a target for immune response.
Technically true, but the overwhelming majority stay at or near the vaccination site unless you hit a vein, and aspiration can largely mitigate that risk.
Also, most people's immune systems don't react that strongly, and the inflammation from spike proteins ending up in random parts of the body is going to be pretty similar whether it's a cell expressing them or them merely ending up stuck to the wall of a blood vessel. So there's not really a solid case for that approach being safer.
Moreover, a spike-only protein has to be adjuvanted to get an adequate immune response, and adjuvants are often the cause of *serious* immune overreactions that make the reactions to mRNA vaccines seem tiny by comparison. For example, one adjuvanted influenza vaccine likely caused a narcolepsy pandemic in Finland [wikipedia.org].
This has been shown with heart inflammation and thrombosis caused by vaccination during the COVID pandemic.
No, that's not true. Thrombosis was a side effect of COVID vaccines with a viral vector, not an mRNA vector. There is some correlation between mRNA COVID vaccines and heart inflammation, but the cases were far less serious than the inflammation that can be caused by an actual COVID infection, both because the severity itself is lower and because the patient isn't fighting a serious illness at the same time. Odds are, that vaccine saved the life of a large percentage of the people who got that side effect.
The material/dose cost and logistical costs are also substantially higher for mRNA vaccines than protein vaccines. The only benefit mRNA has is lower initial capital costs which isn't a good enough reason to risk public health.
The protein-only vaccines showed a risk of myocarditis/pericarditis that was comparable to the increased risk from mRNA vaccines during the clinical trials. TANSTAAFL.
There's no reason to believe that adjuvanted protein vaccines are safer, at least as currently delivered. If you want to get the whole microneedle array thing approved, where the genetic or protein material is pretty much guaranteed to stay in the skin, *that* will be a big safety win. But otherwise, the distinction is likely moot.
Re: (Score:2)
I think people would be better off with protein based vaccines than mRNA. The issue with mRNA is LNPs enable mRNA to enter any cell in the body which leads to avoidable damage/inflammation due to cells expressing proteins that make them a target for immune response.
Technically true, but the overwhelming majority stay at or near the vaccination site unless you hit a vein, and aspiration can largely mitigate that risk.
I agree entirely, but just TRY to get someone who gives vaccines to aspirate. Here in Ontario, the nurses who deliver vaccines can lose their jobs for aspirating. It is literally Health Canada policy NOT to aspirate. I know about this because I have asked on several occasions, and IIRC I actually skipped one of the early shots because they wouldn't aspirate. The WHO also no longer recommends aspiration, and drawing back before pushing seems now to be the exception rather than the rule in most parts of the w
Re: (Score:2)
I think people would be better off with protein based vaccines than mRNA. The issue with mRNA is LNPs enable mRNA to enter any cell in the body which leads to avoidable damage/inflammation due to cells expressing proteins that make them a target for immune response.
Technically true, but the overwhelming majority stay at or near the vaccination site unless you hit a vein, and aspiration can largely mitigate that risk.
I agree entirely, but just TRY to get someone who gives vaccines to aspirate. Here in Ontario, the nurses who deliver vaccines can lose their jobs for aspirating. It is literally Health Canada policy NOT to aspirate. I know about this because I have asked on several occasions, and IIRC I actually skipped one of the early shots because they wouldn't aspirate. The WHO also no longer recommends aspiration, and drawing back before pushing seems now to be the exception rather than the rule in most parts of the world.
Yeah, I'm not saying it is actually possible to get them to do it, just that it's a trivially solvable problem from a technical perspective. What remains is convincing the people who make the rules to stop making stupid rules.
Remember the study wherein mice had Covid vaccine injected directly into blood vessels, and virtually all of them developed myocarditis or pericarditis? Remember that young healthy males were by far the most likely to have adverse vaccine reactions? Gee, do you think that might be because young men still in or near adolescence have lots of muscle growth and re-configuration happening, and therefore probably have bigger, and/or a higher density of, blood vessels in their biceps? And therefore a higher likelihood of getting the shot into a blood vessel?
Probably not. As far as I know, the number of blood vessels increases with age, and never decreases. It is *remotely* possible that it is caused by their blood vessels being more likely to roll out of the way of the needle, but I find that to be pretty unlikely, given that the rate
Re: (Score:2)
Technically true, but the overwhelming majority stay at or near the vaccination site unless you hit a vein, and aspiration can largely mitigate that risk.
Nobody is aspirating and "overwhelming majority" is insufficient. Here in graphic details is what happens when people draw the short stick.
https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccin... [doi.org]
It just isn't me saying mRNA have worse health outcomes...
"mRNA vaccines are associated with greater risk of adverse events following immunization. However, at the present moment the benefits of all types of vaccines approved by WHO, still outweigh the risks of them and vaccination if available, is highly recommended."
https://www.ncbi.nl [nih.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
Technically true, but the overwhelming majority stay at or near the vaccination site unless you hit a vein, and aspiration can largely mitigate that risk.
Nobody is aspirating and "overwhelming majority" is insufficient. Here in graphic details is what happens when people draw the short stick. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccin... [doi.org]
"The main cause of death was recurrent aspiration pneumonia."
Sure, they say that his body's reaction to the vaccine was a significant trigger, but this guy breathed in his food regularly because Parkinson's makes you forget how to swallow. He had serious breathing issues from that which were putting stress on the heart already. The vaccine was the straw that broke the camel's back. If it hadn't been the vaccine, it would have been something else. As someone who has watched that horrible disease in actio
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, they say that his body's reaction to the vaccine was a significant trigger, but this guy breathed in his food regularly because Parkinson's makes you forget how to swallow. He had serious breathing issues from that which were putting stress on the heart already. The vaccine was the straw that broke the camel's back. If it hadn't been the vaccine, it would have been something else. As someone who has watched that horrible disease in action firsthand, let me say that there are many way worse ways for the disease progression to end
The reason I posted the reference was to provide direct evidence of harm specific to mRNA modality. What the person died of is not the relevant issue in my opinion. Whether or not it was vaccine that caused, triggered or contributed to death the harm was inflicted nonetheless.
The conclusion doesn't follow from the numbers.
Sure does.
"The pooled RRs of total adverse reactions for Inactivated, mRNA, and vector vaccines were 1.46 (95% CI: 1.19-1.78), 2.01 (95% CI: 1.82 - 2.23), and 1.65 (95% CI: 1.31 - 2.32) respectively."
The 95% confidence intervals of mRNA and vector vaccine types are mostly overlapping, and most of the inactivated and protein-only vaccines had very low efficacy because of inadequate dosing or too weak an adjuvant.
This is just outright guessing an
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, they say that his body's reaction to the vaccine was a significant trigger, but this guy breathed in his food regularly because Parkinson's makes you forget how to swallow. He had serious breathing issues from that which were putting stress on the heart already. The vaccine was the straw that broke the camel's back. If it hadn't been the vaccine, it would have been something else. As someone who has watched that horrible disease in action firsthand, let me say that there are many way worse ways for the disease progression to end
The reason I posted the reference was to provide direct evidence of harm specific to mRNA modality. What the person died of is not the relevant issue in my opinion. Whether or not it was vaccine that caused, triggered or contributed to death the harm was inflicted nonetheless.
I disagree. You're talking about someone in the end stages of a terminal disease, where a minor infection can easily get bad enough to trigger a heart attack. Someone in such a severely enfeebled state likely shouldn't have been vaccinated in the first place. Rather, everyone who works in and around that person should have been vaccinated mandatorily, and additional quarantine procedures should be used to limit spread within facilities.
The 95% confidence intervals of mRNA and vector vaccine types are mostly overlapping, and most of the inactivated and protein-only vaccines had very low efficacy because of inadequate dosing or too weak an adjuvant.
This is just outright guessing and making shit up.
I'm not guessing at all. I've actually read the studies. A large ph
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree. You're talking about someone in the end stages of a terminal disease, where a minor infection can easily get bad enough to trigger a heart attack. Someone in such a severely enfeebled state likely shouldn't have been vaccinated in the first place. Rather, everyone who works in and around that person should have been vaccinated mandatorily, and additional quarantine procedures should be used to limit spread within facilities.
I think this is a misunderstanding. The issue is the damage to the tissues (including heart and brain) as shown in the imagery caused by vaccine not the fact death occurred.
I'm not guessing at all. I've actually read the studies. A large phase 3 trial in Brazil showed that two doses of SinoVac, administered at an interval of 14 days, had an efficacy of 51% against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. This was in early 2021, when mRNA vaccines where showing 95% effectiveness.
This reads like a non-sequitur. What you said was "The 95% confidence intervals of mRNA and vector vaccine types are mostly overlapping, and most of the inactivated and protein-only vaccines had very low efficacy because of inadequate dosing or too weak an adjuvant." What does inadequate dosing or too weak an adjuvant have to do with
Re: (Score:3)
I think people would be better off with protein based vaccines than mRNA.
The science says otherwise.
This has been shown with heart inflammation and thrombosis caused by vaccination during the COVID pandemic.
You're never even wrong. These symptoms occurred in all covid-19 vaccines developed but mRNA vaccine caused the fewest injuries [nih.gov] despite being the most widely deployed.
https://www.ama-assn.org/deliv... [ama-assn.org]
<snippet>
“Unfortunately, as we've seen with the mRNA vaccines, there have been reports of myocarditis and pericarditis after Novavax during the clinical trials and also in early post-authorization data,”
</snippet>
The only benefit mRNA has is lower initial capital costs
* The covid-19 mRNA vaccines was more effective (especially across age ranges).
* mRNA vaccines have a shorter development period.
* mRNA vaccines are trivial to update for new variants which means faster deployment and fewer infections.
which isn't a good enough reason to risk public health.
Even if your clai
Re: (Score:2)
The science says otherwise.
If you have credible evidence to support your position I would love to see it.
You're never even wrong. These symptoms occurred in all covid-19 vaccines developed but mRNA vaccine caused the fewest injuries despite being the most widely deployed.
Provided reference only talks about "VITT", nothing about heart inflammation which was far more common. Are you conceding the point or is there additional information you would like to share?
Neither does the reference support your contention that it occurred in "all covid-19 vaccines".
I agree J&J and AZ had significantly more incidents than Pfizer and Moderna. All of these vaccines are in effect mRNA vaccines. They all wor
Re: (Score:2)
If you have credible evidence to support your position I would love to see it.
There is plenty of evidence, you just dismiss it. You don't want the truth, you just want your own biases validated. Seek and you shall find.
It isn't clear what this has to do with the article or my remarks but
You remarked that "The only benefit mRNA has is lower initial capital costs" which is absolutely false.
Even if your claims weren't all shit, the deployment and update rate of the vaccine alone would save more lives than the number of people injured/killed.
Also unclear what this has to do with my remarks.
Are you unable to connect the dots that this is a benefit of mRNA vaccines or are you merely pretending to not understand?
worth noting the very first western covid vaccine in human arms was Novavax not Pfizer or Moderna.
Moderna was developed in two months while Novavax was developed in four months.
Moderna : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
* announced Jan
Re: (Score:2)
I think people would be better off with protein based vaccines than mRNA. The issue with mRNA is LNPs enable mRNA to enter any cell in the body which leads to avoidable damage/inflammation due to cells expressing proteins that make them a target for immune response. This has been shown with heart inflammation and thrombosis caused by vaccination during the COVID pandemic.
The material/dose cost and logistical costs are also substantially higher for mRNA vaccines than protein vaccines. The only benefit mRNA has is lower initial capital costs which isn't a good enough reason to risk public health.
This site needs to get its moderation under control. There is no -1 dislike, -1 disagree, -1 this person is wrong. I'm tired of watching people getting modded down simply for having opinions people with mod points disagree with.
Re: (Score:3)
Watching Fox News is even worse for your brain.
Re: (Score:3)
I note you didn't attribute your copypasta. Why is that?
Re: (Score:2)
I mean... other than the fact that the COVID vaccines were tested (though on an accelerated schedule due to the pressing need) and the fact that it was COVID causing the clotting, and the vaccines having an immediately observable positive effect on infection rates and patient outcomes...
Other than all that, you're spot-on and have personally uncovered the conspiracy. Good for you.
You are a liar. (Score:2)