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

reuters.com

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

#411

Post by alex_young »

cookingrobot wrote: post #402
EpicEng wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But for this disease that's particularly bad because... Doesn't change the fact that, when you're developing a new drug, you want to test it in a way which will cause the least harm. You don't begin trials with those most at risk for obvious reasons. The primary goal of this phase it to asses the safety of the vaccine candidate. I'm also unaware of any disease that isn't more threatening to people in relatively poor…

You say it’s “obvious” but it’s the opposite of my intuition. Can you explain the logic a bit more? I would have thought you’d give a risky new drug to the least healthy, most likely to die without it population, to raise the chance of survival from low to unknown.

Presumably the risks of an unknown response outweigh an as yet unknown benefit when testing is starting. These risks would be amplified for those with already compromised systems.

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

#412

Post by mikeyouse »

Bobblebobble wrote: post #370
eznzt wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you very much for sharing this. >Until now, this vaccine has only been tested on laboratory mice and other animal species and this is the first time that the vaccine will be given to humans. Is it possible to know which species those are?

It has been tested on rhesus macaque monkeys.

Yep, more detail here:

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/investigationa...

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

#413

Post by graeme »

eumenides1 wrote: post #170
apexalpha wrote: post #134

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…

This is completely incoherent. Consider a book author who has a monopoly on for profit publishing, but anyone else can publish for no profit.

The book author’s expected profits would plummet as it would be the wild west in production.

What you’re really saying is “we should pay massively less for vaccine development”. Which again, sounds nice, but....why would anyone have developed a vaccine? It’s a complex project which costs billions and has taken 12+ months while taking resources away from competing projects.

The public money is an incentive to get people to put those considerations aside and devote all their resources to vaccine development. This is a sensible public investment in a return to normalcy.

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

#414

Post by zaroth »

SamBam wrote: post #377
eznzt wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFPDF: >You will be compensated for your time, the inconvenience of having blood tests and procedures, and your travel expenses. The total amount compensated will be approximately £235 - £625 depending on the exact number of visits and whether any repeat or additional visits are necessary.

To add some context to this, medical trials generally only compensate time (at a low hourly rate) and expenses, occasionally increased slightly to compensate for hardship. They deliberately do not pay large amounts, because the money is not supposed to overly-incentivize the participation, to avoid ethical issues where someone might choose to participate in something very unsafe only because the reward seems so large…

The treatment itself is also free. For a vaccine trial that's not much of an incentive, but for things like cancer trials it can be extremely valuable.

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

#416

Post by apexalpha »

amyjess wrote: post #405
apexalpha wrote: post #134

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 United States Military has the best logistics system in the world. I'd rather have them handle manufacturing and rollout than either a multinational or a startup.

The US government has one of the worst track records in the entire Western world when it comes to access to healthcare and affordable medicine.

They also have 0 experience in developing a vaccine and it's transport.

But I guess they can transport some tanks and troops quickly, sure.

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

#417

Post by GekkePrutser »

0898 wrote: post #369
fcsp wrote: 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?

Why would tabloid glamour models be excluded?

Vaccines often cause a minor cosmetic bump. If you see people with a triangle of bumps on their shoulder for example they have received a common vaccine for healthcare workers.

And the smallpox one can leave an even bigger scar. I suppose they don't want the liability for that which could impact the model's income

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

#418

Post by cwhiz »

Can someone explain to me why double blind is necessary or useful for a vaccine trial such as this? It seems obvious to me on something like a pain medicine, but on a vaccine it seem a pointless. Is placebo an actual issue with a vaccine?

It honestly seems borderline unethical to give people a placebo vaccine.

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

#419

Post by ska »

cookingrobot wrote: post #402
EpicEng wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But for this disease that's particularly bad because... Doesn't change the fact that, when you're developing a new drug, you want to test it in a way which will cause the least harm. You don't begin trials with those most at risk for obvious reasons. The primary goal of this phase it to asses the safety of the vaccine candidate. I'm also unaware of any disease that isn't more threatening to people in relatively poor…

You say it’s “obvious” but it’s the opposite of my intuition. Can you explain the logic a bit more? I would have thought you’d give a risky new drug to the least healthy, most likely to die without it population, to raise the chance of survival from low to unknown.

There is always a balance of risks, and this is why there are ethics review board.

My intuition on this has become that the more certainty there is that you are to die without treatment, the easier it is to try relatively risky new treatments on you (with your consent). But say having stage IV pancreatic cancer is very different than having a comorbidity for a disease you haven't contracted yet.

Additionally with something like a vaccine, you are very interested in what it will do to the general population, not just the most vulnerable, because it should be rolled out to the general population. Anything screening program, you have to pay attention to the unlikely side effects since the denominator will be large.

Finally, you do these trials in phases because you need to find out if it is safe for humans first, then if it is effective.

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

#420

Post by pbourke »

maxehmookau wrote: post #384
rlpb wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why risk it? It's worth pointing out that during a pandemic, while participating in a trial does carry a risk, so does not participating. A participant has some substantially greater probability* than the general population of avoiding an infection which apparently carries a risk of death or long term debilitating effects. * You'll have to incorporate the probability of being in the control group, of course, but th…

Oh yeah, that's for sure. The idea that there's a pretty decent chance that I've been vaccinated already which means I don't have to wait for a vaccine is great. My life can begin to go back to normal potentially months before it otherwise would.

Are participants eventually informed whether they’re in the treatment or control groups?
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