Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blogs.sciencemag.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 262 posts

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

#61

Post by kiterunner2346 »

The key may not be a vaccine but simply staying alive. Covid-19 kills with a "cytokine storm":

cytochine release syndrome(cytokine storm):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome

Article discussing coronavirus et al and cytochine storm:

"Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China"

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

From the article:

"In view of the high amount of cytokines induced by SARS-CoV,22, 24 MERS-CoV,25, 26 and 2019-nCoV infections, corticosteroids were used frequently for treatment of patients with severe illness, for possible benefit by reducing inflammatory-induced lung injury. However, current evidence in patients with SARS and MERS suggests that receiving corticosteroids did not have an effect on mortality, but rather delayed viral clearance.27, 28, 29 Therefore, corticosteroids should not be routinely given systemically, according to WHO interim guidance."

Curcumin has been shown to suppress the cytokine storm.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25600522/

Curcumin is found in the spice turmeric and is available in most grocery stores. Today you can buy a pound of turmeric powder for ~$6. You can buy curcumin tablets in the health & fitness section.

Other anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDS(aspirin, buprofen, naproxen),prednisone, etc.) are not as effective.

In India children are often given a daily teaspoon of turmeric (curcumin) in milk or water. India suffered much lower SARS deaths (there are confounding factors, e.g. India's high summer heat). I expect the same to happen with covid-19.

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

#62

Post by jefftk »

hannob wrote: post #58
ericlewis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can speed up clinical trials by running larger ones at earlier stages. This risks more deaths from bad medicines, which may still be worth it in a pandemic.

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

#63

Post by Slartie »

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…

I would love if some absurdly rich person started an initiative donating life-changing money, like a few hundred millions or so, to any expert who finds himself in a situation being asked questions like this by the president and who then stands up to Trumps' stupid Hey-I'm-the-frickin-president-and-you-don't-want-to-say-no-to-me-that's-why-I-just-stubbornly-suggest-what-I-want-to-hear-long-enough-until-you-give-up tactics by simply calling BS on him, loud and clear and repeatedly, if necessary.

Heck, if I had the money I would do it, just for fun (and to make the world a better place, of course). I mean, these people are not stubborn or dumb or shy. I guess they are just intimidated by this guy who can basically ruin their professional careers and thus their financial existence with a snap of his fingers - and who wouldn't hesitate to do so, if his feeble ego craves for it. That must be why we get "A little - a little longer" instead of "Nobody said anything about 'two', you just made that up! The only number that fell was 'one', and it was suffixed by 'year'. Let me repeat that for you: one year! Oh, and I must be honest with you: nobody cares about what you'd like to hear."

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

#64

Post by herf »

belltaco wrote: post #23
herf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inc…

Here's a positive result. https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583 "Vitamin D supplementation was safe and it protected against acute respiratory tract infection overall. Patients who were very vitamin D deficient and those not receiving bolus doses experienced the most benefit."

Good one (odds ratio=0.88), and it's generally low-risk.

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

#65

Post by howmayiannoyyou »

Lowe was a proponent of intravenous vitamin C under a specific set of circumstances for immune response during oncology (https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/02/vi...), and in China and Korea claims are being made that similar intravenous (not oral therapy) has positive results: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-elCYFhqJs&feature=emb_logo) and (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04264533)

It would be ironic if the most overhyped supplement of all time had efficacy here.

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

#66

Post by daddylonglegs »

I've edited the sub-title (that I added) from "no COVID-19 drug or vaccine in the short term" to "no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic." The author or magazine nailed their colours to the mast with the title "Get Real," so I think that should stay in the title. Lowe doesn't use "COVID-19" or "SARS-CoV-2" or "nCov" in the article so I've used "coronavirus epidemic."

I did not expect the title detract from the discussion to the extent that it has, sorry.

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

#67

Post by armada651 »

econcon wrote: post #41
thenewnewguy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are downvoted for passing off your uneducated (in the field of health) opinion that her illness was coronavirus as fact, and for implying that antibiotics somehow could help with the coronavirus directly (i.e. in fighting the virus not preventing secondary infections) in any way (they can't).

>You are downvoted for passing off your uneducated I asked her again, now it's confirmed it's Coronavirus. It takes time to get lab test, they can't confirm it immediately it seems for now.

It can't already be confirmed if the labtest is not completed yet. It sounds like you still misunderstood the nurse.

They're doing a labtest for Coronavirus because she's been in contact with a nurse who's been in contact with a Coronavirus patient. It is just standard protocol to get tested in that case.

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

#68

Post by jfk13 »

jefftk wrote: post #62
hannob wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can speed up clinical trials by running larger ones at earlier stages. This risks more deaths from bad medicines, which may still be worth it in a pandemic.

Though the people dying (or losing their friends and families) from the bad medicines might not see it that way.

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

#69

Post by Robotbeat »

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…

I agree, but the death rate of COVID-19 may not be high enough to justify a huge increase in risk tolerance.

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

#70

Post by Robotbeat »

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…

By the way, the DJIA lost trillions of dollars. That's like 100 Manhattan Projects ($20 billion adjusted for inflation).

EDIT: Don't know why I'm down-voted, but my point is that an extremely aggressive development project is easily justified if it can reduce the health and economic impact. 10 Manhattan Projects worth of effort to accelerate mass treatments, if it even just halved the economic impact, would easily pay for itself.

Post reply on HN