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P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

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Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#41

Post by m0zg »

pengaru wrote: post #40
m0zg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The proposed CDC funding cuts have been overruled by Congress. In fact the CDC gets more funding now than at any point under Obama (who BTW, also tried to cut the budget several times; e.g. 2015 CDC budget is $243M less than 2014), and this year's budget is larger than last year. It's not the lack of funds. It's total mismanagement. $7B+/yr and we get 70 people tested per day as thousands are being infect…

There's a complete lack of leadership in handling this pandemic in large part because this incompetent administration disbanded the national security team global health security and biodefense directorate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0...

Care to explain why there was lack of leadership in 2009 when 57 million Americans got infected with H1N1? Or why Ebola response was also botched? There seems to be a long history of incompetence here. You can't fix incompetence by giving the incompetent more money or keeping them around.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#42

Post by titzer »

m0zg wrote: post #31
killjoywashere wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had decades of smart thinking about this, and forsaw the need 3 years ago based on Ebola. Things are now in trial, so if it's 2020 and you're reading this, sorry, the funding is already committed. Better luck next time. Keep your ear to ground and move faster.

I wish I could share your optimism, but after watching the congressional testimony I think we're pretty fucked. I think we should just shut down the CDC and FDA (when this is over), and start from scratch with an agency focused on addressing epidemics and pandemics, as well as quick drug approvals. The incompetence is pretty obvious and staggering, and as per Fauci's testimony, the CDC is not designed for the crisis…

This would be a mistake on par with disbanding the Iraqi military after Iraq was "liberated". Don't do this.

Fix the agency. Don't let smart people disappear into retirement and the private sector. Don't annihilate the remaining expertise that does exist. You will never get them back.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#43

Post by brrrrr1 »

With all due respect - does anyone believe the US army can deal with a pandemic? I mean you cant just shoot a huge number of weapons and kill it. That army hasn’t even been able to win wars against tribes, how can it win against a virus? I get it, there is a lot of PR surrounding it, but a pandemic is a real issue that requires science not dumb muscle. Somehow I believe the US and its army are the opposite of a solution to such an issue.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#44

Post by bildung »

m0zg wrote: post #41
pengaru wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a complete lack of leadership in handling this pandemic in large part because this incompetent administration disbanded the national security team global health security and biodefense directorate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0...

Care to explain why there was lack of leadership in 2009 when 57 million Americans got infected with H1N1? Or why Ebola response was also botched? There seems to be a long history of incompetence here. You can't fix incompetence by giving the incompetent more money or keeping them around.

H1N1 was literally just the regular flu. And there were only 4 confirmed Ebola cases in the US.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#45

Post by DrScientist »

Essentially you go from recovering patient to 20,000 therapeutic doses in 60-90 days.

Note it is not a vaccine - a vaccine is something like part of a virus that then drives an immune response ( body evolves antibodies against it ) - here you are taking an antibody sequence you know works and directly putting that in the body and genetically programming the body to make it.

Here's how:

- find and clone the patients own antibody that allowed them to recover.

- deliver that antibody in nucleic acid form to new patients so they can make the antibody themselves.

The idea is to be able to produce enough doses quickly enough to protect front line staff in the containment phase.

As the antibody has already been discovered by the recovering patient, you can use single cell screening and cloning to retrieve the particular antibody gene.

The second step avoids many many months of building and scaling a protein manufacturing process ( though manufacturing steps still exist ).

It's a new technology and so carries some unknowns - but in the case of pandemic then you could argue these are justified.

There has already been a proof of principal run through and a number of companies were able to deliver proof of concepts within the timescale. The next question is how well these work in people.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#46

Post by geofft »

m0zg wrote: post #41
pengaru wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a complete lack of leadership in handling this pandemic in large part because this incompetent administration disbanded the national security team global health security and biodefense directorate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0...

Care to explain why there was lack of leadership in 2009 when 57 million Americans got infected with H1N1? Or why Ebola response was also botched? There seems to be a long history of incompetence here. You can't fix incompetence by giving the incompetent more money or keeping them around.

Neither of those responses were botched, sorry.

And yes, you can in fact fix incompetence by giving the incompetent organization more money. Organizations are made up of people, and those people have varying levels of competence, and the set of people isn't fixed, either. Sometimes you have competent ICs begging for funding and incompetent managers who can't present the case for it. Sometimes you have competent managers who don't have enough budget to hire competent ICs at salaries competitive with industry. Sometimes everyone is competent but too afraid of risking their job to speak out against structures or processes that prevent them from doing their best work. If you think there's corruption, that's a different matter, but if it's just incompetence, throwing more money at the problem sounds like a fantastic plan.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#47

Post by bluGill »

pengaru wrote: post #40
m0zg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The proposed CDC funding cuts have been overruled by Congress. In fact the CDC gets more funding now than at any point under Obama (who BTW, also tried to cut the budget several times; e.g. 2015 CDC budget is $243M less than 2014), and this year's budget is larger than last year. It's not the lack of funds. It's total mismanagement. $7B+/yr and we get 70 people tested per day as thousands are being infect…

There's a complete lack of leadership in handling this pandemic in large part because this incompetent administration disbanded the national security team global health security and biodefense directorate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0...

I don't know, it appears to me that we are running a long in place plan. (Other than troubles with testing kits which can be blamed on a one time case, but there is surely mismanagement in there). We are not panicking, as things prove to be getting worse we are seeing more and more action.

By long in place, I mean first made many years ago and updated regularly as things change. That is the CDC's job.

It is tempting to want instant actions, but they often turn out to be knee jerk and wrong.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#48

Post by DrScientist »

wespiser_2018 wrote: post #20

Disease prevention has been in DARPAs wheelhouse for a while now. While in grad school, a couple groups at my school worked on a project to predict the future evolution of influenza, so the vaccine order in March will be relevant to the strains dominate in November. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2016-06-13a The last time I heard an update, it was that prediction was very difficult as unpredictable random mutation…

As the military often go to 'exotic' places, they are have long been at the forefront of wanting to treat 'tropical' diseases.

Also with the military setup - lots of people living together in barracks - infectious diseases have a high risk of spreading rapidly.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#49

Post by bluGill »

brrrrr1 wrote: post #43

With all due respect - does anyone believe the US army can deal with a pandemic? I mean you cant just shoot a huge number of weapons and kill it. That army hasn’t even been able to win wars against tribes, how can it win against a virus? I get it, there is a lot of PR surrounding it, but a pandemic is a real issue that requires science not dumb muscle. Somehow I believe the US and its army are the opposite of a solut…

For many years it has been a worry of any competent military that the enemy is going to release a bio-weapon. As such every army is be preparing for something. They won't know what exactly is coming, but they have processes in place to deal with it as best they can. That means supplies in place, and people training in using them - it might mean a generic gas mask instead of a N95 filter, but it will get the job done.

The army is also well trained in securing an area. Need to enforce no travel, the army learns that in basic training.

Again, this isn't about the US army, it is about any competent military in the current world. Limited of course by their budget.

Re: P3: Pandemic Prevention Platform (2017)

#50

Post by _tfi1 »

DrScientist wrote: post #45

Essentially you go from recovering patient to 20,000 therapeutic doses in 60-90 days. Note it is not a vaccine - a vaccine is something like part of a virus that then drives an immune response ( body evolves antibodies against it ) - here you are taking an antibody sequence you know works and directly putting that in the body and genetically programming the body to make it. Here's how: - find and clone the patients o…

It works well in humans: https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

Main finding was at the high dose, there were some adverse events but no serious adverse events, and they all self-resolved without intervention. At the lower doses (0.3 and 0.1mpk), it still provided months of protection against infection assuming the "protective level" is accurate.

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