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Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

reuters.com

351–360 of 712 posts

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares. I'd gladly give this company a couple of billion if it means they can get us back to normal. Oxford develops the vaccine with public money. We also, god willing, need to manufacture billions of them and transport them around the globe. For that manufacturing, give me a solid existing multinational with a proven manufacturing record and base please, not some non-profit startup.

The point is that we should reconsider giving (temporary) monopolies to companies that are based public research. I suggest that we should give merek the for profit monopoly, but allow for non profit manufacturing. If another organization wants to make the vaccine but not derive profit from the process, let them. Manufacturing takes time and money to develop. Revenue should pay for those costs. The non-profit gains e…

Society at large is being asked to make drastic adjustments because of a collective health issue.

Why is the corporate "right to make profit" sacrosanct when nothing else is?

This is a clear case of Eminent Domain. All mandated, mandatory, Covid-19 related products must be offered at cost, or even better, we should just nationalize drug companies. We're all in this together and companies need to adjust to "new normal" as well.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug companies also fund their own research, to the tune of massive expenditures. What you’re suggesting would incentive these companies to disengage from partnerships involving public funding. Whoever pays for the research, each company’s goal is to profitably sell a non-generic treatment. If the only way they can do that is to eschew public funds, they will do this and the result will be less cooperation and a far…

Honestly, this is overblown. Most of the budget for these corporations goes to marketing, and the R&D mostly goes to repatenting efforts or incremental repurposings. They rarely come out with anything new, and if you look at recent years you may as well say that they never do.

You hit the nail right on the head. This is the same with basically every consumer product in capitalism, which is why it’s so inappropriate for life saving medicine.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#353
post #349

I'm in the trial. Here's the participant information sheet, in case anyone's curious: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WB5QPmECchlThnem9wcX0PDaKQW...

Considering all the excluded groups on the trial (page 3, kids, 55+, obese, weak immune system, a lot more), it's a lot of exclusions, how does one get from results on a study like this to declaring the vaccine safe for general use?

Not really qualified to answer this, but I would imagine follow-on rounds of testing. Also, those groups should be protected through herd immunity if everyone else gets the vaccine.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#354
post #349

I'm in the trial. Here's the participant information sheet, in case anyone's curious: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WB5QPmECchlThnem9wcX0PDaKQW...

Considering all the excluded groups on the trial (page 3, kids, 55+, obese, weak immune system, a lot more), it's a lot of exclusions, how does one get from results on a study like this to declaring the vaccine safe for general use?

Extrapolation. Is there a scientific rationale as to why the vaccine would NOT be safe and effective in a new population? If not, approve it for that population. If there is rationale why it wouldn’t be, ask for more data.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most places(at least around the EU) have already announced that the vaccine will be free - so there is no question about affordability?

The taxes still paid for it twice

In what way? Yes, the taxes paid for research, then taxes paid to purchase the product. But if everything was state owned top to bottom, the taxes would have had to fund research, then manufacturing, production and distribution. I wager the amount of money spent would have been exactly the same, so it's more like an accounting trick than an actual difference.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#356
post #349

I'm in the trial. Here's the participant information sheet, in case anyone's curious: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WB5QPmECchlThnem9wcX0PDaKQW...

Considering all the excluded groups on the trial (page 3, kids, 55+, obese, weak immune system, a lot more), it's a lot of exclusions, how does one get from results on a study like this to declaring the vaccine safe for general use?

Maybe a stupid question, but do we need to vaccinate everyone? I remember reading that heard immunity is 70% or something - so could we get away with leaving the people out that it wasn’t tested on?

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#357
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if something goes horribly wrong and the vaccine trial causes unwanted side effects? Why risk it, what are they paying you?

I'm receiving no money for my participation. I wasn't in the initial Phase I trial, a few hundred people had already received the vaccine before me with no unexpected side effects. I guess I'm risking it because someone has to. Vaccine trials are incredibly safe and highly regulated. In reality, the worst-case was that it didn't work rather than my head exploding.

How do you prove to people you are in a vaccine trial, do you have a card?

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#358
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering all the excluded groups on the trial (page 3, kids, 55+, obese, weak immune system, a lot more), it's a lot of exclusions, how does one get from results on a study like this to declaring the vaccine safe for general use?

Maybe a stupid question, but do we need to vaccinate everyone? I remember reading that heard immunity is 70% or something - so could we get away with leaving the people out that it wasn’t tested on?

The vaccine may itself not be perfectly protective, and the herd immunity threshold only works if the people vaccinated are random. Otherwise any unvaccinated population can have an outbreak.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#359
post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm receiving no money for my participation. I wasn't in the initial Phase I trial, a few hundred people had already received the vaccine before me with no unexpected side effects. I guess I'm risking it because someone has to. Vaccine trials are incredibly safe and highly regulated. In reality, the worst-case was that it didn't work rather than my head exploding.

How do you prove to people you are in a vaccine trial, do you have a card?

I have a "red alert" card so if I'm found unconscious a paramedic knows to contact the study team to find out if I'm in the control arm or I've had the active vaccine so they can rule out if it's important to why I was found unconscious!

But it is just a piece of paper that the team printed out, and I think I lost it.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#360
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not corrupt. It’s money well spent. The benefits to us all are most likely more valuable than anything we’ve spent on vaccine research. Government balance sheets also probably come out ahead on that investment given that the alternative is an economy with a raging pandemic and resulting lower tax base. Then there is the logistical effort of manufacturing the vaccine at the scale and speed required. There are…

Not when it's a monopoly. That means the company gets to exploit the results of the research for their own profit, without any competition to keep prices reasonable. Non-exclusive deals are fine. Exclusive ones are not.

That’s a fair point. I guess my underlying assumption would be the government funding the research would retain rights to the research as well. Thanks for pointing that out.
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