Proven Against Coronavirus, mRNA Can Do So Much More (cnn.com) 108
A long read in Wired argues that the mRNA vaccine revolution is just beginning.
CNN explains why scientists are so excited: When the final Phase 3 data came out last November showing the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna were more than 90% effective, Dr. Anthony Fauci had no words. He texted smiley face emojis to a journalist seeking his reaction. This astonishing efficacy has held up in real-world studies in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere. The mRNA technology developed for its speed and flexibility as opposed to expectations it would provide strong protection against an infectious disease has pleased and astonished even those who already advocated for it...
This approach that led to remarkably safe and effective vaccines against a new virus is also showing promise against old enemies such as HIV, and infections that threaten babies and young children, such as respiratory syncytial virus and metapneumovirus. It's being tested as a treatment for cancers, including melanoma and brain tumors. It might offer a new way to treat autoimmune diseases. And it's also being checked out as a possible alternative to gene therapy for intractable conditions such as sickle cell disease.
In fact, Moderna is already working on personalized cancer vaccines, the article points out — and that's just the beginning. Two researchers whose technology underlies both the Modern and BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines are now also working on two vaccines against HIV, another one to prevent genital herpes, and two targeting influenza, including a so-called universal influenza vaccine that could protect against rapidly mutating flu strains, possibly offering years of protection with a single shot.
And researchers have also studied mRNA vaccines to fight Ebola, Zika, rabies and cytomegalovirus.
CNN explains why scientists are so excited: When the final Phase 3 data came out last November showing the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna were more than 90% effective, Dr. Anthony Fauci had no words. He texted smiley face emojis to a journalist seeking his reaction. This astonishing efficacy has held up in real-world studies in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere. The mRNA technology developed for its speed and flexibility as opposed to expectations it would provide strong protection against an infectious disease has pleased and astonished even those who already advocated for it...
This approach that led to remarkably safe and effective vaccines against a new virus is also showing promise against old enemies such as HIV, and infections that threaten babies and young children, such as respiratory syncytial virus and metapneumovirus. It's being tested as a treatment for cancers, including melanoma and brain tumors. It might offer a new way to treat autoimmune diseases. And it's also being checked out as a possible alternative to gene therapy for intractable conditions such as sickle cell disease.
In fact, Moderna is already working on personalized cancer vaccines, the article points out — and that's just the beginning. Two researchers whose technology underlies both the Modern and BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines are now also working on two vaccines against HIV, another one to prevent genital herpes, and two targeting influenza, including a so-called universal influenza vaccine that could protect against rapidly mutating flu strains, possibly offering years of protection with a single shot.
And researchers have also studied mRNA vaccines to fight Ebola, Zika, rabies and cytomegalovirus.
Similar vibe to discovery of penicillin. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that I was around to see that, but this seems like a similar medical step up to the adoption of antibiotics.
Maybe in the future they'll add mRNA tech to the list of great medical advances such as germ theory and anesthesia ?
Re:Another desperate attempt to use BIZX SEO (Score:5, Insightful)
mRNA vaccines have been tested more thoroughly and for longer than either the polio vaccine or the smallpox vaccine were when they were released to the public.
You can look it up.
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The mistake you're making is that the first polio vaccine was not the one that was released to the public.
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I really like mRNA vaccines, but your earlier comment said "the polio vaccine". I think it is reasonable to understand that as one that was widely used, rather than an earlier version that was never approved for public use. Which specific polio vaccine(s) were you comparing mRNA vaccines to?
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If you're going to count earlier polio vaccines that were not released, the existing research for COVID-19 vaccines was an extension from past research on SARS and MERS vaccines (COVID being caused a closely related sarbecovirus).
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Were those mRNA-based vaccines? While the Covid-19 vaccines were all accelerated by that earlier research and vaccine development, I don't think that R&D speaks specifically to how much testing the BioNTech or Moderna vaccines got before wide use.
I am glad that these vaccines were available so quickly, and I think speeding them up so much will end up saving hundreds of thousands or millions of lives, as well as let life get back to "normal" quicker. But we should be accurate when we make claims about
Re: Another desperate attempt to use BIZX SEO (Score:2)
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Too much awareness is unhealthy. Rein that shit in !
Phase III testing is acceptance testing (Score:2)
Many thousands of people were medically followed up until any bad results would have shown up. I'm comfortable with the process too.
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Actually, this whole thread has become unreasonable from both sides. If you were arguing about specific vaccines it might make sense, but if you include general research you can follow threads back to the alchemists.
FWIW, I don't believe the mRNA vaccines have been sufficiently tested, but they've been tested enough that I took mine without a qualm over a month ago. In a decade I'll think they've been sufficiently tested. But at any one point in time you have to make your decision based on the evidence t
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To be clear, I don't think grasshoppa's argument is that the earlier polio vaccines should be counted as testing for any vaccine that was eventually released. From Wikipedia's description of the Salk vaccine, which is the one that was eventually used across the US (I am not familiar with other countries):
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Giving a vaccine to 1.8 million people is not a test, it's a rollout.
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That particular mode of failure has been removed, but the potential for new ones has been added. More testing is still needed.
OTOH, the vaccines haven't been approved by the FDA, they've been given an "emergency use authorization", and that seems about right.
Re:Another desperate attempt to use BIZX SEO (Score:5, Informative)
Did you happen to check how long we have been studying mRNA vaccines when you up looked up polio???
The first report of the successful use of in vitro transcribed (IVT) mRNA in animals was published in 1990
The first demonstration that DCs electroporated with mRNA could elicit potent immune responses against tumour antigens was reported by Boczkowski and colleagues in 1996
Moderna Therapeutics, founded in 2010, has raised almost US$2 billion in capital with a plan to commercialize mRNA-based vaccines and therapies
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
During the last two decades, there has been broad interest in RNA-based technologies for the development of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines. Preclinical and clinical trials have shown that mRNA vaccines provide a safe and long-lasting immune response in animal models and humans
https://www.frontiersin.org/ar... [frontiersin.org]
Math isn't my strongest subject, but 20 years is slightly longer than 5
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Did you happen to look up how long we studied any polio vaccines? The one released in 1955 was 5 years in the making, but research into any and all polio vaccines went back decades.
Small pox is even worse; that one was worked on for centuries.
Point is, his statement is flat out false, but perhaps worse; it's irrelevant. Our methods have changed radically since the 1950s, so any comparison is fallicious ( as well as being wrong ).
Perspective (Score:2)
>1990
mRNA development is just as old as the World Wide Web.
Re:Another desperate attempt to use BIZX SEO (Score:5, Informative)
Comparing the Salk vaccine trials to the Pfizer or Moderna trials is definitely an apples-to-orangutans comparison; the situations are so different you can't compare timelines at all. Arguably for what they had to do, the Salk vaccine was actually more rushed. They spent a year between what we'd call Phase 2 and Phase 3 debating basic science questions that are long since answered for us. They also had to figure out how to design their large scale study, something we have decades more experience with. Today the only reason for us to delay Phase 3 after Phase 2 results are accepted are logistical. We'd also use a much smaller but more diverse test population in Phase 3 to get results that are more statistically reliable, despite testing being faster and cheaper.
mRNA vaccines, if you have the technology, are actually *simpler* to develop and test than killed virus vaccines (like the Salk vaccine) or killed virus vaccines (like the Sabin vaccine). They're *modular*, consisting of a standardized delivery vehicles (a lipid envelope) with a customized mRNA payload. That's what makes the idea of a personalized cancer vaccine possible. You don't have start by asking the question "What would a vaccine for this cancer look like?" You already know that. You don't have to spend years culturing lines of cancer cells looking for ones that might have special properties. You select a peptide target in the cancer then shoot a customized molecular bullet at it.
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"apples-to-orangutans" definitely caused a "mood swing" in me: from exasperation to laughter. Sorry, but I will NOT discontinue use.
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Here is slide of a brief timeline of mRNA's use in therapy. It is neither new and untested, nor dangerous.
https://i.imgur.com/5f43cIG.jpg
Source:
https://www.edx.org/course/the-covid-19-pandemic-and-the-use-of-mrna-vaccines
Technology remains morally neutral (Score:2)
If you have to feed the trolls, do you need to perpetuate their foul Subjects?
My initial reaction to the story was to think about possible negative uses of the mRNA technologies. Even the FP example of penicillin reminded me of the problems caused by the overuse of antibiotics that created the resistant so-called super-germs.
Re: Another desperate attempt to use BIZX SEO (Score:1)
Lol, what a bunch of idiotic and ignorant anti-vax propaganda.
Re: Another desperate attempt to use BIZX SEO (Score:2)
If you donâ(TM)t like mRNA, what do you think is in the virus? The virus has mRNA too, you dolt. The vaccine has only one gene from the virus, the virus itself comes with a whole set. Your cells are full of mRNA by the way. mRNA of the vaccine goes away after a month.
mRNA lifetime (Score:2)
Maybe much less than a month. I've had trouble finding good numbers, but sometimes common sense works: if if has to be stored in a specialized deep freezer, how long is it going to last at body temperature around recycling enzymes?
In days or weeks, there's nothing left but memories: Memory B cells and T cells.
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I wonder how many people are getting paid to spread lies.
These French influencers were honest and blew the whistle instead of taking the money. But I'd bet the "PR firm" tried more places and succeeded at some.
https://www.france24.com/en/eu... [france24.com]
Vaccines are safer than walking out the door. (Score:2)
Thank you for posting this - I wasn't aware of any specific disinformation that had been traced to Russia.
Putin seems intent on sewing as much chaos in the west as he can in any way he can. It's remarkable.
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Contradictory much?
Vaccines from Chicoms are all of the viral vector variety.
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Oh my bad. Actually all Chicoms vaccine are "inactivated virus" ones, they're even less effective than the viral vector vaccines.
https://apnews.com/article/chi... [apnews.com]
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Do NOT get a shot involving mRNA. You have other choices.
The rest of us in here are hoping that you in particular don’t get vaccinated. Our gene pool is better off without you.
Re:Similar vibe to discovery of penicillin. (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably.
There are some remaining problems. The biggest one is maybe that the liver tends to eat the lipid carrier bubbles, so vaccines work well, and you can treat things in the liver, but it's (so far) hard to get them to go anywhere else efficiently.
If you combine in vivo mRNA tech with ex vivo t- and b- cell tailoring, plus on-demand designer monoclonal antibodies, you've got a medical revolution.
Re:Similar vibe to discovery of penicillin. (Score:5, Informative)
It seems if you want persistent protein production, you want DNA plasmid treatment rather than mRNA treatment. But for brief exposures to train the immune system to attack specific compounds, mRNA seems to do a bang-up job.
Either way, my favourite part of all of this is.... all of this infrastructure we're building out applies to any mRNA treatment. And whatever comes, we can rapidly reallocate this new infrastructure to produce treatments for it. It's not specialized processes, but rather, generalized processes Create whatever plasmid you want, insert it into bacteria, breed in bulk, harvest and isolate the plasmids, mass produce mRNA from the plasmids, process it into lipid nanoparticles and combine into a stabilized solution, then bottle. Same process for whatever you want to produce, you just change the contents of the initial plasmid.
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Everything except the lipid encapsulation is now a DIY garage lab activity. You can order your custom bacteria/fungus off the internet. Some YouTuber made glowing brewer's yeast.
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That would make sense if you were trying to deliver a drug to directly to the site of the disease process, but a vaccine doesn't work that way. It has to ring the innate immune system alarm that wakes up the adaptive immune system, then present the adaptive immune system with an antigen it can learn to recognize. It doesn't have to be where the disease is going on because the immune system is ubiquitous. That's why you get your Pfizer jab in your arm muscles, not up your nostrils.
The problems they *have*
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Yes.
No, you haven't "unlocked the door to the immune system." The immune system is complicated. You've created an extremely useful tool, but vaccines aren't the end all and be all.
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I never said they were the be all and end all. But there's a huge vista of possibilities that opens up when you can program lymphocytes to target molecules of your choice.
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Actually, the vaccines are injected intro-muscularly, not into the blood stream, which is what your argument applies to. Yes, if injected into the blood stream most of it ends up in the liver. If injected into a muscle, much of it stays in that muscle. (My upper arm ran a fever for nearly a week after the second injection...but the rest of me was fine.)
FWIW, it's my expectation that after further research the doses given will be strongly reduced. But they wanted to make sure this first batch worked.
OTOH
Could someone spare... (Score:2)
...like 5 minutes and look into a cure for ulcerative colitis? The IV is really getting in the way of reaching the toilet in time and the hospital bed is extra uncomfortable...
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The "no liability" thing is a tradeoff. To get approval and disclaim liability, drug companies are required to simultaneously collect and provide data on any evidence of side effects to regulators, who can then decide to pull the drug off the market if any evidence of problems emerges. If a drug company fails to collect data or hides problems from regulators, they lose their immunity from liability.
It's IMHO a perfectly fair and reasonable arrangement.
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You can very much bet on it that while vaccines will have zero, or limited liability, any protein from this that works like a drug by enzymatic work, will NOT have that same limited liability. Maderna, BioNTech and now, Pfizer will all be held to high standards for these.
Let me pre-empt the tin-foilers: ... (Score:1)
... the chip shortage is going to keep us from immediately taking advantage of mRNA vaccines.
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
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What do you think all that chip production capacity was used for?
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This is a brilliant extension to the conspiracy theory ;)
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The most frightening book I ever read was Umberto Eco's *Foucault's Pendulum*. That's because gullible people working together are a scary and entirely believable monster.
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The reason why nations like Russia, China, India, etc want all the patents released, and for the 2 companies to turn over their trade secrets is because it is IMPOSSIBLE for mRNA treatment to be an issue. It is no different than injecting somebody with sterile saline.
mRNA is produced by every living cell that has a nucleus with DNA or for prokaryotes, simply having DNA. It is even produced by mitochondria.
There is NO CHANCE that the mRNA itself can cause any issues. Now, as to what it codes for, tha
It's a ... cold war? (Score:2, Interesting)
All good until life finds a way around it. And it will, again and again.
Otherwise we would not be here to post.
C'est la vie.
"led to remarkably safe and effective vaccines" (Score:2)
There is precisely ZERO data available on the long term effects of these "vaccines" (they are actually experiment gene therapies and NOT vaccines).
What we do know is that there are quite a few adverse side effects that compromise fertility, cardiac functionality, severe arthritis, nervous disorders, and has even lead to death in thousands of cases so far.
Important to remember, none of these vaccines has FDA approval. They only have emergency authorizations. So maybe we should save the fan fair for a coupl
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Are you getting paid by one of the twelve bastards that spread misinformation or are you just one of their useful idiots?
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There is precisely ZERO data available on the long term effects of these "vaccines" (they are actually experiment gene therapies and NOT vaccines).
First, the approach as been around for over a decade.
Secondly, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have any long term effect from the mRNA. Why? Because the mRNA is DESTROYED over hours or days. As such, there can not be any long term effect. Ot even claim that on your part is about as loony as somebody that they do not know the long-term effect of sterile saline being injected into a body.
Of course what the protein is that it codes for, is possible to have long-term effects, but that is on an individual basis, not t
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Guns aren't dangerous, because only the bullets harm people, not the gun itself.
Emm, yeah, that's sort of how it works.
An unloaded gun lying on the ground isn't dangerous to anyone, except perhaps as a tripping hazard.
An mRNA strand, without being loaded with encoding proteins, isn't dangerous either.
The technology for delivery is not what makes something dangerous in these instances.
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What we do know is that there are quite a few adverse side effects that compromise fertility, cardiac functionality, severe arthritis, nervous disorders, and has even lead to death in thousands of cases so far.
And this is just pure BS on your part. Another anti-vaxer who ignores facts, and does not have a clue of what the fuck is talking about.
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No, they are NOT gene therapies; your genes are DNA, and mRNA *reads* DNA. It does not write DNA. Your genes are literally write-protected from mRNA.
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The old way - the J&M and Astra Zenica vax was a gene therepy that ends up doing the same thing as the mRna drugs do - if they work right. Problem with J&J is that it sometimes hit the nucleus and not outside in the cell and caused blood clots. Whole write up on it, that's the readers digest version. So mRna is way better.
I wish they had more educational materials out there. So much misinformation. Some people think this will make it so you'll catch other stuff and die. IMHO the way our environment
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The components of the vaccine (the mRNA as well as the spike proteins produced by your cells when they read the mRNA strands) are gone from your system in a matter of weeks. We have people who were immunized with the Pfizer and Modera shots for about a year now from the trials and all of the symptoms manifest in the first few days as the immune system sees the sp
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mRNA is such a huge item (Score:2)
Now, mRNA treatment is one of the safest treatments and this will not doubt be used in the future for a number of vaccines and genetic disease treatment.
Of course, all this is known in the biological/medical world, which is why China, Russia, India, etc are all demanding that not only should the patents be opened u
You'd think Fauci invented the stuff (Score:2)
Reading this excerpt, you would think Fauci invented mRNA vaccines. I'll bet a shocking number of people believe this. Fauci is a grand-stander who can't answer a question without an evasive answer.
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And in this day and age the man Fauci was known as the serpent, as it was known that he cast the first spite against our Lord and Savior Trump. Let not your heart be weary for great will be our attacks upon his countenance. We will burn the soles and blister the fingers of those who corresponded with him and his ilk, and the world will know our fury! In this time our most faithful would utter the following chant upon any media of social:
Fauci is a liar. Fauci is a liar. Fauci is a liar...
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Why would you think this? Fauci wasn't mentioned in the excerpt at all.
bacteria? (Score:2)
All the diseases that are suggested as potential targets of mRNA-based vaccines are viral. Why can't mRNA vaccines target bacterial (or even plasmodium, like malaria) infections as well? By producing antibodies to proteins found in the bacteria. There must be a reason.
How good is it? (Score:2)
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Can it cure the boil that's festering on the ass of America?
Unfortunately that'll probably take freedom pills that contain lead going at high velocities. That's what normally is required to get rid of the socialist/leftist virus. Easy to get, very hard to get rid of socialism. They just move on to another country with a bunch of "useful idiots" to support it.
Re:The main problem (Score:5, Informative)
I had the misfortune (and bad timing) to contract Type A influenza in February 2020 - first time in my life I have had a positive test for flu. It was easily 20x worse than the worst reaction I have had to any flu vaccine, and unlike the worst reaction I have ever had to any vaccine (which was the first shingles shot) the real flu made me very much aware that it could easily kill a semi-old like me if it continued to get worse for another day or two. No vaccine has every made me feel as if it might kill me [1]. So I'd really like to see some double-blind clinical trial data on the influenza vaccine having side effects as bad as contracting active influenza, or anywhere near that.
[1] fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it I had West Nile virus when I was still somewhat on the younger side; that one could easily kill me at this age. Again no vaccine has come within 1/20x, or maybe 1/50x, of the effects of West Nile.
Otherwise I could feel sorry for the flu virus (Score:2)
It's been radically suppressed in what would have been flu season and it has mRNA vaccines heading its way.
But, it hits people dangerously hard. Sorry for lack of a citation, but I did read that it was not unheard of to need to rebuild a third of a lung after a bad case of flu.
So, I say to it what this guy said to cold viruses:
https://xkcd.com/2306/ [xkcd.com]
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If you think the flu vaccine makes you feel as bad as having the flu, you've never had a bad case of the flu!
Re:The main problem (Score:4, Informative)
I've never had anything worse than a mildly sore arm from any flu shot in my life. Side effects from flu shots are generally mild and brief, and far more pleasant than influenza.
"Where mRNA vaccines can improve things" is manyfold, including focusing on specific antigens that are well preserved across a range of viruses, and only those antigens. Fewer antigens, but a more coordinated response against them.
Also, vaccine side effects, when they occur, are generally not from the adaptive immune system (the part that learns how to attack specific antigens and then remembers it); they're generally from the innate immune system [wikipedia.org]. The adaptive immunity system generally works without any sort of symptoms at all. There's no fundamental reason it's essential to trigger the innate immune system in order to develop an adaptive immune response.
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I came down with the flu around 2011 and it convinced me I'd never actually had the flu before in my entire life. I had never felt misery like that before. At the time due to an egg allergy I was not allowed to have flu vaccines (don't even start with "there's non-egg vaccines available", good luck finding one).
I took Tamiflu, the gold standard retroviral for flu. I had a mild psychotic episode. It was pretty scary. Looking into it, psychological problems are a known side-effect. They banned giving it to ki
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You may be an outlier. When I get the flu shot, I at most feel very mild symptoms for part of a day, as opposed to feeling terrible for over a week with the actual flu.
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So... you'd get an annual flu shot, then end up feeling like you HAD influenza for 3-5 days
I've gotten a flu shot pretty much every year for the past decade (other than 2020). I've never had any symptoms other than a mildly sore arm. My dozens of friends and family who have had their flu shots report the same.
Contrast that with the time I actually *had* the flu where I was knocked down for two weeks and felt like I had been hit by a bus.
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The main problem with vaccines for something like influenza (short-lived immunity, motive primarily to avoid misery of symptoms arising primarily from immune reaction) is that an effective vaccine CAUSES those very symptoms, often almost as badly & for as long as the actual illness would. So... you'd get an annual flu shot, then end up feeling like you HAD influenza for 3-5 days. Essentially, you're trading a 40-60% chance of a 1-2 week illness for a few days of guaranteed misery & downtime instead. Still a tiny bit better overall... but a shitty deal nonetheless.
Why are there so many anti-vaxers running around esp. on /.???
The ONLY way that a vaccine can possible cause ANY of the things that you are describing, is if it is a LIVE VACCINE. When I was injected with smallpox as a kid, it was a LIVE VACCINE. It could and more importantly, it DID, kill a number of kids back then. Why? Because the vaccines was live and a very tiny minority did not have the ability to defend against it. In contrast, I also had live virus for West Nile, multiple forms of encephalitis, and
Re: The main problem (Score:2)
No, it's fuckwits like YOU who automatically classify anyon who dares to point out both sides as "anti vax" that are the problem. I'm vaccinated, and in fact do the annual flu-vaccine ritual even though I think it's pathetically ineffective and mostly-useless to anyone who isn't already at death's door, precisely BECAUSE they focus entirely on strains that are deadly-to-the-ultra-vulnerable over strains I'm likely to actually catch, and IMHO, aggressive Tamiflu use is a thousand times more effective at red
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I'm not saying that flu shots are (always) as bad as the real thing. I'm saying that if you got a 9-valent flu shot that had strains that were all different from the ones you were vaccinated against last year (to maximize novelty), it would absolutely knock you on your ass for several days and (for a few days, at least) make you feel almost as bad as having a real flu, because the strong immune reaction it stimulated would produce most of the effects that make the experience of having a REAL flu so objectio
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Now, I wish that I had moderated and not posted.
I, for one, want my gills, ability to digest cellulose, and wide-spectrum EM vision! ;)
Maybe some wings and Spock ears for 2029's fashion?
Why not ask for this treatment to give you jet engines on your arm and fly you in the upper atmosphere. With the exception of digesting cellulose, It will do just as much of this as it would do what you asked for.
And with that said, I have to wonder if this will not be used for that in the future? The reason is that it might be possible to target fat cells and have them create an enzyme that either kills the cells (scary due to possibly hitting other