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Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

theguardian.com

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Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#51

Post by lxmorj »

youeseh wrote: post #27
mmsimanga wrote: post #20

As a kid growing up in Malaria country I got yellow jaundice. Doctor told my dad that since I had had yellow jaundice I was "immune" to malaria. Its been 35 odd years since I have taken any malaria medication. Family members often get malaria once or so a year. A few years ago I decided to check to see if there were was any literature online with link between Malaria and jaundice. I couldn't find any papers online. N…

This reminds me of an interesting story. The host of The Portal podcast, Eric Weinstein went on the Joe Rogan show where he shared a story: he used to get very easily sun burnt. No chance of getting a tan. He'd just burn. Then, one day he took LSD and then stopped burning. Crazy story. No follow up study =).

Sounds like Eric swapped consciousness with a parallel Eric that’s now very confused about his sunburn situation

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#52

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

_Microft wrote: post #34
Crazyontap wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was rather insightful. But seriously I cannot believe that this technology exists, has proven successful in lab test but the reason they're holding it back is because they are afraid of tampering with the eco-system. I'm glad they didn't feel that when eradicating polio and smallpox and other things. Anyway after reading some more I feel that part of it may be because it is modification to the gene. People are j…

It is not because of gene manipulations per se but because by design it is proliferating by itself. Contrast that to a vaccine that turns out to be not safe: administering the vaccine would then just be stopped. If these gene-drive mosquitoes, on the other hand, turn out to be a problem, then there is no easy way to stop that. So better get it right the first time and - as much as you do not seem to like that - that…

>Contrast that to a vaccine that turns out to be not safe: administering the vaccine would then just be stopped.

The smallpox vaccine which was responsible for the eradication of smallpox was a live virus and could spread from person to person. And through the course of time, it did mutate/become contaminated. It was originally cowpox, but at an unknown time sometime in the 1800's actually became vaccinia virus.

https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html https://virus.stanford.edu/pox/2000/vaccinia_virus.html

So, the great achievements of the past, such as smallpox eradication were not as risk-free as we perceive them with our 20-20 hindsight.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#53

Post by bo1024 »

mmsimanga wrote: post #20

As a kid growing up in Malaria country I got yellow jaundice. Doctor told my dad that since I had had yellow jaundice I was "immune" to malaria. Its been 35 odd years since I have taken any malaria medication. Family members often get malaria once or so a year. A few years ago I decided to check to see if there were was any literature online with link between Malaria and jaundice. I couldn't find any papers online. N…

Visited malaria country recently and was told by doctors that most people growing up there end up with constant low levels of the malaria parasite (like 1-2% of red blood cells maybe) that their bodies have just learned to live with. Not exactly immunity.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#54

Post by echang426 »

Well it seems promising but nothing can be said until they can determine if this drug can actually be used safely for humans. But maybe the same issue will occur again where a resistance is built up to the drug from improper use and it'll become another battle to find the next malaria drug.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#55

Post by dmix »

mmsimanga wrote: post #20

As a kid growing up in Malaria country I got yellow jaundice. Doctor told my dad that since I had had yellow jaundice I was "immune" to malaria. Its been 35 odd years since I have taken any malaria medication. Family members often get malaria once or so a year. A few years ago I decided to check to see if there were was any literature online with link between Malaria and jaundice. I couldn't find any papers online. N…

> Family members often get malaria once or so a year.

Wow they must be some tough people. That's no joke.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#56

Post by minitech »

newsreview1 wrote: post #18
arkades wrote: post #2

This article can’t seem to decide whether it’s discussing ivermectin - an old antiparasitic derived from the avermectin produced by streptomyces - or bacteria. It vacillates between “ivermectin effective” and “bacteria killed parasite,” which are in no way equivalent. The latter suggests something like “strep killed plasmodium, so maybe we can find the compound used and use it for malaria.” The latter suggests, well,…

This science journalism isn't all that bad, actually. The article is clearly about Ivermectin, and never mentions "bacteria killed parasite" - Additionally, Ivermectin and other avermectins are macrocyclic lactones and are derived from the bacterium Streptomyces avermitilis. So even if teh article mentions bacteria... it's still not wrong.

It’s the way the article mentions bacteria that’s wrong. The wording and capitalization really do imply that ivermectin is a species of bacteria.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#57

Post by Alex3917 »

youeseh wrote: post #27
mmsimanga wrote: post #20

As a kid growing up in Malaria country I got yellow jaundice. Doctor told my dad that since I had had yellow jaundice I was "immune" to malaria. Its been 35 odd years since I have taken any malaria medication. Family members often get malaria once or so a year. A few years ago I decided to check to see if there were was any literature online with link between Malaria and jaundice. I couldn't find any papers online. N…

This reminds me of an interesting story. The host of The Portal podcast, Eric Weinstein went on the Joe Rogan show where he shared a story: he used to get very easily sun burnt. No chance of getting a tan. He'd just burn. Then, one day he took LSD and then stopped burning. Crazy story. No follow up study =).

Andy Weil has a very similar story about LSD curing his allergy to cats.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#59

Post by stjohnswarts »

mullingitover wrote: post #9
ChefboyOG wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of experiment is called a gene drive, and there's a huge debate in scientific communities right now around whether it's responsible or not to use them, particularly around the mosquito problem. A professor of mine who works in the field was discussing this with us last week. The idea with mosquitoes specifically is that we can wipe out specifically the mosquito populations that carry most diseases. The deba…

> This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data. This is so infuriating. Many people will die during this extended hemming and hawing. Humans have driven countless important species to extinction with no thought, but we have to vacillate over a species that is responsible for mor…

yep, the mosquitoes serve no discernible value in the population, I saw go ahead and eradicate them.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#60

Post by roywiggins »

NegativeK wrote: post #21
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then there are others who are in general opposed to this sort of interference in an animal population on ethical grounds. There are over 250,000 children under the age of 5 that die every year from malaria. In my ethical system, there is very little that can possibly justify trying to prevent something that will save the lives of 250,000 children a year. Anyone who actively tries to delay wiping out malaria causing…

Long-term, irreversible damages to entire species and ecosystems when perhaps a non-destructive solution is close? I don't feel like reductive arguments are useful for incredibly complex systems.

Nobody is exactly crying for the guineaworm, and by interrupting its life cycle it may end up being eradicated.
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