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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

#51

Post by hannob »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

> Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades

That is actually not what I hear from people who know this stuff. In fact many are very concerned that the FDA is far too quick with drug approval based on weak outcomes. (Big recommendation: Follow Vinay Prasad on twitter, he's spot on on these issues.)

> During WWII design and production ramped up to an unprecedented degree

This isn't production, this is science. There's only so much you can do. You need to do trials to know if things work. You need people for that. If you want to test a vaccine you need to have an at-risk population that you can test and you need to wait till you get the results. Yeah, there are certain ways to improve that and do things faster. But only so much. There are hard limits. You can't develop a drug or a vaccine over night.

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

#52

Post by _jal »

malkia wrote: post #4
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…

as someone on low-carb I find this interresting, but any studies behind it?

I'm sure if you check your spam folder or follow links from Twitter bots, you'll find some soon enough.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
allemagne wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone reading is concerned that the author is being too harsh on Trump's "surreal" summit on Monday (which certainly could be possible despite being heavily credentialed), please judge for yourselves: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres... >THE PRESIDENT: ... You take a solid flu vaccine — you don’t think that would have an impact or much of an impact on corona? >DR. SCHLEIFER: No. >DR. F…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/03/trumps-ba... “And how long would that take?” Trump asked. The CEO said it would take months and then head into phase three. “All right. So you’re talking within a year.” “A year to a year and a half,” Fauci again clarified. “Well, but, Lenny is talking about two months, right?” Trump said, incorrectly referring to Schleifer’s August estimate. “A little — a little lon…

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by ericlewis »

hannob wrote: post #51
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

> Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades That is actually not what I hear from people who know this stuff. In fact many are very concerned that the FDA is far too quick with drug approval based on weak outcomes. (Big recommendation: Follow Vinay Prasad on twitter, he's spot on on these issues.) > During WWII design and production ramped up to an unprecedented deg…

America did a lot of science to produce a nuclear weapon quite quickly once given the resources to do so.

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

#55

Post by cryoshon »

a vaccine might be 18 months away, if we're lucky and divert resources to the effort. if we're unlucky, it could be four to five years or even longer. remember, there's no guarantee that we can even make a vaccine for any arbitrary viral disease. we can't do nothing while we wait for a vaccine.

placeholder antiviral therapies are also a non-starter. we can't manufacture the drugs at the scale we need them unless we massively expand our production capabilities, and that takes time as well as money.

---

as things stand currently, there has been no substantive response by the US federal government to the coronavirus which will lead to the lessening of infections or mortality.

china and south korea both explicitly stated that they were transitioning to wartime footing to combat the virus. we need to follow in their footsteps. we need billions of dollars in spending, suspension of normal daily life, and requisitioning of the necessary resources from private entities if needed. and we need to do this today. now. this afternoon. preferably before 5 PM. this isn't a problem to be left until tomorrow.

yet we're still here, conducting life as normal as the infection reaches the exponential part of its spread. people are still going to work, going to church, and riding the subway. hospitals and prisons don't have any special measures in place.

we aren't even testing people after weeks of knowing that we are at risk for local transmissison. we have no extra resources queued up. as of today, our congress can't even agree to pass a funding bill to combat the disease. we have no leadership, and it's going to kill quite a few people.

if you think i'm being "alarmist", please revisit my here comment in six months, when we'll have a clearer idea of the death toll. i don't know if this virus will kill a million americans, or only a few hundred. either way, if we act with more vigor over the last few weeks, i can say with confidence that more people will live.

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

#56

Post by nartz »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

Disagree - this isnt 22000 ad its 2020 ad - while we have technology, development of vaccines is still very slow, and of course, even if we did have a much faster process to develop such a vaccine, there is of course, the financials, politics, manufacturing, quality control, distribution, monitoring, etc infrastructure must be put into place.

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

#57

Post by radicaldreamer »

blobbers wrote: post #47
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

`...would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug.` Thanks for saying this, and rightfully so! Approving a bad drug in the world where distribution channels are very well set up could have disastrous effects. We can point to things like the opioid crisis in the USA right now - a drug that is so addictive it should have never been put into use the way it was.

Also see thalidomide in Europe

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

#58

Post by hannob »

ericlewis wrote: post #54
hannob wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades That is actually not what I hear from people who know this stuff. In fact many are very concerned that the FDA is far too quick with drug approval based on weak outcomes. (Big recommendation: Follow Vinay Prasad on twitter, he's spot on on these issues.) > During WWII design and production ramped up to an unprecedented deg…

America did a lot of science to produce a nuclear weapon quite quickly once given the resources to do so.

It didn't involve clinical trials on humans. That's the one thing that takes time in medicine and can't be optimized away. You can't do medicine without clinical trials.

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

#59

Post by jefftk »

hannob wrote: post #51
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

> Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades That is actually not what I hear from people who know this stuff. In fact many are very concerned that the FDA is far too quick with drug approval based on weak outcomes. (Big recommendation: Follow Vinay Prasad on twitter, he's spot on on these issues.) > During WWII design and production ramped up to an unprecedented deg…

> very concerned that the FDA is far too quick with drug approval based on weak outcomes

The current FDA requires strong evidence of safety, over a long period. Prasad etc are arguing the FDA should be stricter on efficacy. In a pandemic, it makes sense to lower your standards for safety to get new treatments out sooner.

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

#60

Post by HelloNurse »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

Production of pharmaceuticals (such as a vaccine, when it's ready) and medical equipment (such as ventilators) can be ramped up by commissioning and requisitioning an arbitrary number of factories, but developing a vaccine is inherently a sequence of trials that can only be "multithreaded" between relatively few research teams trying different approaches semi-independently.
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