No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#421

Post by jrochkind1 » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #302

yibg wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this why the results are compared against the control group?

For a study to be valid and useful, the control group has to go through exactly the same criteria as the test group. Everyone is "blind" to whether they get the placebo or the real thing. So they all get the same interviews/tests and rejection criteria. Putting all the diabetics in the control/placebo group would make it pretty obvious who was and wasn't getting the real thing.

Not every single study is blinded -- sometimes there are ethical reasons that lead against it. And you can have a valid study without it sometimes.

But looking up this one, it was blinded, indeed! https://www.henryford.com/moderna-vaccine/faqs

Even if it isn't blinded, you try to make sure the control group and experimental group are equally representative though, you don't "put all the X in the Y group" ever, this is true! Because the whole point is testing two groups as much alike as possible other than the thing you are testing.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#422

Post by yspeak » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

lambda wrote: post #409

tesmar2 wrote: post #395

Is it true that the flesh of murdered babies (embryonic stem cells) was used during the research for this vaccine?

The fact that you use the term "flesh of murdered babies" to refer to embryonic stem cells, which even the Catholic Church simply refers to as "aborted fetal cell lines", indicates that you've bought way too heavily into the right-wing American culture war. But anyhow, to answer your question despite the terrible way it was asked, no, the Moderna vaccine did not use embryonic stem cells in its development or producti…

https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/st...

Podcast on Catholic ethics re vaccines and stem cells derived from aborted fetal remains

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#423

Post by projektfu » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

QuercusMax wrote: post #367

projektfu wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this one uses a DNA virus as a way to deposit a piece of DNA into the nucleus of a cell, so that it makes viral proteins the way cells usually do. The virus used is incapable of replication so it only has the cell entry features, not the viral propagation features.

Depositing a piece of DNA into the nucleus doesn't seem to me to be the same as changing the organism's DNA. If the cell divides, will the daughter cells each have their own copy of the DNA? It doesn't sound like it to me.

Apparently not. Wild-type adenoviruses seem to prevent cell division while they replicate their DNA on their own until they cause cell lysis to distribute the virions. Adenoviral vectors, on the other hand, leave the free DNA particle in the nucleus where it gets transcribed to RNA but it does not get replicated during mitosis.

https://www.genetherapynet.com/viral-vector/adenoviruses.htm...

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#424

Post by tsimionescu » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

abiogenesis wrote: post #369

tsimionescu wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true if you can use the same aspirin as many other people. If the specific substance needs to be adjusted to your specific tumor, it may remain extremely expensive for a long time - until it becomes a technician's job to find your specific cancer signature and synthesize the drug from it.

In this case "aspirin" is the equipment/software/education needed to perform this treatment; not the mRNA itself.

Yes, this is what I meant by it being the technician's job. But building out a new commodity specialist job out of this new technology takes a lot more time than it takes to ramp up production of a regular drug.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#425

Post by tesmar2 » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

lambda wrote: post #409

tesmar2 wrote: post #395

Is it true that the flesh of murdered babies (embryonic stem cells) was used during the research for this vaccine?

The fact that you use the term "flesh of murdered babies" to refer to embryonic stem cells, which even the Catholic Church simply refers to as "aborted fetal cell lines", indicates that you've bought way too heavily into the right-wing American culture war. But anyhow, to answer your question despite the terrible way it was asked, no, the Moderna vaccine did not use embryonic stem cells in its development or producti…

The pro-life position gets flagged, welcome to HN.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#426

Post by tesmar2 » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

m-ee wrote: post #417

tesmar2 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still an embryo, hence a young human.

Out of curiosity what would you have done with them? They'd otherwise be destroyed and they're an inevitable result of the process. Do you oppose IVF?

Using that logic the incentive will be to keep creating them since hey, they’re dead now so what does it matter.

Yes IVF usually results in the loss of a lot of babies, so no to IVF.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#427

Post by tesmar2 » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

lambda wrote: post #409

tesmar2 wrote: post #395

Is it true that the flesh of murdered babies (embryonic stem cells) was used during the research for this vaccine?

The fact that you use the term "flesh of murdered babies" to refer to embryonic stem cells, which even the Catholic Church simply refers to as "aborted fetal cell lines", indicates that you've bought way too heavily into the right-wing American culture war. But anyhow, to answer your question despite the terrible way it was asked, no, the Moderna vaccine did not use embryonic stem cells in its development or producti…

It seems we can’t have a discussion here because you or someone else keep flagging my responses because I use the proper description of what's happening. So much for free speech.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#428

Post by JasonFruit » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

sleepydog wrote: post #335

JasonFruit wrote: post #277

I was reading about Moderna today, and I found a number of articles from 2017-18 expressing concern about their secretiveness and impatience with both safety precautions and the failures that are inevitable in drug trials, based on the experiences of former employees and science journals. I can't deny that makes me nervous. I didn't see anything about it after that time, however.

I recently heard an interview with their chief medical officer that directly addressed that criticism. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/vaccine/ I don't know if it will change your mind, as he basically says that it may have been valid criticism in 2015-2016, but not anymore.

I'm glad to hear that, and I hope it's true. I'd like to see a safe, effective vaccine. Thanks!

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#429

Post by JasonFruit » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 8:25 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #397

barbs wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any links to these articles?

I came across these in my own reading today related to moderna's early troubles, from 2016 / 2017: https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/13/moderna-therapeutics-bio...

Zzzeek has found exactly the ones I read.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#430

Post by lambda » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

tesmar2 wrote: post #427

lambda wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you use the term "flesh of murdered babies" to refer to embryonic stem cells, which even the Catholic Church simply refers to as "aborted fetal cell lines", indicates that you've bought way too heavily into the right-wing American culture war. But anyhow, to answer your question despite the terrible way it was asked, no, the Moderna vaccine did not use embryonic stem cells in its development or producti…

It seems we can’t have a discussion here because you or someone else keep flagging my responses because I use the proper description of what's happening. So much for free speech.

I have not flagged any of your posts, but remember that "free speech" means freedom from government interference with speech, not freedom from a particular community deciding that your speech is disruptive to that community.

I notice looking through your comment history that you spend a lot of time discussing abortion and gun control, the two primary culture war wedge issues in American politics, and which are mostly off-topic for a technology and startup focused discussion site.

I tried to answer your question in good faith, and hope that you appreciate the information, but I don't really think this is the best forum for discussing the ethics of embryonic stem cell research.

I will just leave you with this article which has some good history on the anti-abortion movement in the US and how it came to be associated with the evangelical Christian movement: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-ri...