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Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

blogs.sciencemag.org

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Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#11

Post by AdmiralGinge »

Bender wrote: post #2

It is interesting to me that people are so laser focused on test kits and vaccines. In my less than humble opinion, people should focus on improving their immune system. You can reduce the load on your immune system by not eating sugar and reducing carbs as much as you can. We also know from history and science that every plague that killed people from respiratory virus infections was due to a lack of vitamin D3 and…

>most importantly, take a break from smoking which is know to increase ACE2

Not going to lie, I'm very very glad I quit smoking before this coronavirus business. I was down to just a vape by June last year and I quit that in December.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#12

Post by lazyjones »

hprotagonist wrote: post #6
m0zg wrote: post #3

Ctrl+F "remdesivir". No results in the article. Epic fail. There's really no cure for the Trump Derangement Syndrome, though.

I have met Derek Lowe personally. He's got 35 years in the game as a bench chemist working on theraputics and knows this world inside and out. What are your similarly long-term credentials that give you such definitive knowledge?

This kind of "appeal to authority" argument reminds me of the recent interview with an industry "veteran" (60 years experience in developing combustion engines) and professor where he condemned electric cars and claimed they will not help the climate.

Being experienced doesn't mean you can't be foolish/dogmatic or simply wrong. And it doesn't always take an even more experienced researcher to prove someone wrong.

I wish we would discuss more about the actual issues instead of belittling users' qualifications to speak about them.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#13

Post by herf »

Bender wrote: post #2

It is interesting to me that people are so laser focused on test kits and vaccines. In my less than humble opinion, people should focus on improving their immune system. You can reduce the load on your immune system by not eating sugar and reducing carbs as much as you can. We also know from history and science that every plague that killed people from respiratory virus infections was due to a lack of vitamin D3 and…

Here are three negative results (all randomized controlled trials) for Vitamin D supplementation during the winter:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.0006...

failed to show any effect on wintertime supplementation of D (using pre-registered criteria)

http://www.vitaminedelft.org/files/art/ling2009.pdf "no benefit"

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/fo/c4fo0... "did not lower incidence of influenza"

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#14

Post by swsieber »

Most comments seemed to be responding to the title, which misses the point. The title is quite editorialized.

The real point of the article is that there's no drug or vaccine in the works that will be able to prevent the impending U.S. epidemic, so don't pin your hopes on them.

I'd go so far as to suggest a new title of "Get Real - Drugs and Vaccines won't Prevent a U.S. Epidemic".

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#16

Post by toxik »

lazyjones wrote: post #12
hprotagonist wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met Derek Lowe personally. He's got 35 years in the game as a bench chemist working on theraputics and knows this world inside and out. What are your similarly long-term credentials that give you such definitive knowledge?

This kind of "appeal to authority" argument reminds me of the recent interview with an industry "veteran" (60 years experience in developing combustion engines) and professor where he condemned electric cars and claimed they will not help the climate. Being experienced doesn't mean you can't be foolish/dogmatic or simply wrong. And it doesn't always take an even more experienced researcher to prove someone wrong. I w…

Appeal to authority is not the same as appeal to expertise. An expert does have a better shot at knowing. Appeal to authority is saying "climate change doesn't exist, the US president denies it", appeal to expertise is saying "artificial general intelligence is not coming soon, Michael I. Jordan denies it".

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#17

Post by stordoff »

m0zg wrote: post #3

Ctrl+F "remdesivir". No results in the article. Epic fail. There's really no cure for the Trump Derangement Syndrome, though.

It seems like this is missing the point of the post:

> What's not happening is the advent of any drug, vaccine, antibody or anything else in time to keep this epidemic from becoming a very big problem. That's because it is already a very big problem

We don't need a treatment in a few months, or even a few weeks. We need a treatment _now_, and we don't have one. Even if remdesivir works, and we can show that _now_, we need to ramp up production and distribution.

Also, it seems like it could be covered in tomorrow's/Friday's post:

> either tomorrow or Friday I hope to do a post on all the things that are going on in the biopharma industry for a possible coronavirus treatment [... ] as anyone who knows anything about drug or vaccine or antibody development knows, we are many months away from the quickest possible proven intervention (more on this in the promised post)

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#18

Post by BlargMcLarg »

Bender wrote: post #2

It is interesting to me that people are so laser focused on test kits and vaccines. In my less than humble opinion, people should focus on improving their immune system. You can reduce the load on your immune system by not eating sugar and reducing carbs as much as you can. We also know from history and science that every plague that killed people from respiratory virus infections was due to a lack of vitamin D3 and…

I'm curious how this is the conclusion you made instead of becoming more macro-organized. People are getting more and more stressed (see burn-outs rising), affecting our immune systems. Most of us are still encouraged to go into work when we have a cold. Many could work from home, but are actively or passively stigmatized when attempting to do so. For all its draconian measures, China is showing them to be effective for the time being. In the same way, we could've rid ourselves of many pests, plagues and illnesses ages ago which a simple "get your immune system up bro" couldn't deal with.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#19

Post by bilekas »

Bender wrote: post #2

It is interesting to me that people are so laser focused on test kits and vaccines. In my less than humble opinion, people should focus on improving their immune system. You can reduce the load on your immune system by not eating sugar and reducing carbs as much as you can. We also know from history and science that every plague that killed people from respiratory virus infections was due to a lack of vitamin D3 and…

> people should focus on improving their immune system

Okay, but for those who cant, underlining conditions etc, what do you suggest ?

This is the world we live in, and that kind of build up you're talking about that would fight off all these strains of virus' would take generations of active measures.

In the meantime, I don't think it's a bad idea to develop vaccines and shots which will aid our immune system.

Our body uses the memory DNA (or memory cells - Not a doctor) after getting chicken-pox so that we (usually) don't get it again. But the COVID strains vary so much it's a little pie-in-the sky right now to imagine naturally fighting all of them.

Our best defense is our ability to maintain good hygiene in this generation. We know all about how these things spread, and that should be the primary focus for the every day to day person.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#20

Post by m0zg »

toxik wrote: post #16
lazyjones wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of "appeal to authority" argument reminds me of the recent interview with an industry "veteran" (60 years experience in developing combustion engines) and professor where he condemned electric cars and claimed they will not help the climate. Being experienced doesn't mean you can't be foolish/dogmatic or simply wrong. And it doesn't always take an even more experienced researcher to prove someone wrong. I w…

Appeal to authority is not the same as appeal to expertise. An expert does have a better shot at knowing. Appeal to authority is saying "climate change doesn't exist, the US president denies it", appeal to expertise is saying "artificial general intelligence is not coming soon, Michael I. Jordan denies it".

Please explain how this "authority" could write an article which does not mention any of the candidate drugs currently undergoing human trials, yet spends an entire paragraph on "orange man bad".
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