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Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

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Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#191

Post by wmeredith »

alexpetralia wrote: post #151
credit_guy wrote: post #141

One of these is for the little known Nipah virus. This virus is really scary. Like the Coronavirus, it jumps to humans from bats. Unlike the Coronavirus, it is extremely lethal. In the last outbreak, in 2018 [1], the case fatality rate was 89%. Fortunately, there were only 19 cases (17 died). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Nipah_virus_outbreak_in_K...

Is my understanding correct that a virus so deadly would quickly peter out because it kills its hosts before it can spread?

Yes. See also: ebola. If a disease is fatal too fast, it cannot spread well.

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#192

Post by ahelwer »

koheripbal wrote: post #144
danfo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s so pervasive and creates all kinds of weird dietary and nervous system issues. I am not an expert, but I think it would be amiss to omit the Lyme disease controversy with these statements. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477530/ Lyme disease has a simple antibiotic treatment. The Lyme serology test has high false-positive rate. There might be many people who believe they have Lyme disease therefor…

This misses that many many people get Lyme disease without knowing it (asymptomatic), particularly children, and if treatment it not given early in infection, permanent neurological damage occurs. This is common in north eastern state rural areas and has been getting steadily worse. We are constantly doing tick checks on the kids after one of our friends related that she suffered lifelong issues after being bitten by…

And in turn this misses that chronic lyme has become a catch-all self diagnosis people have for chronic medical problems with no clear cause. There is not really much evidence to believe it is a real thing.

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#193

Post by bluGill »

jfengel wrote: post #187
high_density wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

damn I have a habit of only reading HN comments and guessing what the article is about

It is slightly odd that the headline doesn't feature HIV more prominently, since this is a press release. PR puffery would call for a headline more like "We cured COVID and now we're going to cure Flu and AIDS (and another thing you've never heard of)." Props for modesty, I guess, but this is a weird instance to suddenly get coy.

The list of things they work working on is too long for a headline. I personally find HIV the least interesting (since I'm at extremely low risk by lifestyle - I'd still get the vaccine it work works, but it isn't a big deal to me). To me the correct headline is "moderna isn't working on vaccines for any of the cancers my family members are currently fighting" I have no doubt that someone else will read the article and respond "you idiot, they work working on X which is the most important things possible" - X of course being different for each personal situation.

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#194

Post by cyberlurker »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103
lysp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Found this: https://www.verywellhealth.com/why-there-will-never-be-a-vac... > Vaccines target a specific virus or pathogen. One difficulty with developing a vaccine for the common cold is there are at least 200 different viruses that can cause cold symptoms, including rhinovirus, coronavirus, adenoviruses, and parainfluenza.1 > Rhinovirus makes up about 75% of colds. Still, there are more than 150 strains of it circu…

I'm ignorant, but could they put a tiny dose of all 175 variants into a single shot and yeet that into people in one go?

Is there a medical definition for “yeet”?

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#195

Post by amluto »

someperson wrote: post #58
m-ee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some more detail in this article from July, they’re using mRNA to make the body produce virus like particles https://www.aidsmap.com/news/jul-2020/novel-vaccine-induces-...

Any effective HIV vaccine would presumably cause false-positives to the HIV antibody tests. Recently an Australian COVID-19 vaccine candidate trial was halted due to participants developing antibodies to proteins in the vaccine that were taken from HIV genome, causing false-positive on a HIV test. [1] Such false-positives could easily be co-opted by anti-vaxxers especially in light of the the famous Soviet Union disi…

I think you’re misunderstanding the problem. We already have vaccines that cause positives on antibody tests. This is quite common. For example, the HepB vaccine causes positives on the HBsAb test, and people who administer the test understand this.

If we had a widely available vaccine and effective vaccine for HIV that affected certain tests, this would easily be justified by the benefit of the vaccine in preventing HIV. And the results of the antibody tests could potentially still be used to assess HIV immunity.

But a COVID vaccine that caused HIV tests to report positive without conferring any immunity would be bad — the test would essentially become useless. Re-engineering the vaccine to avoid this seems like a no-brainer.

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#196

Post by freeone3000 »

jfengel wrote: post #187
high_density wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

damn I have a habit of only reading HN comments and guessing what the article is about

It is slightly odd that the headline doesn't feature HIV more prominently, since this is a press release. PR puffery would call for a headline more like "We cured COVID and now we're going to cure Flu and AIDS (and another thing you've never heard of)." Props for modesty, I guess, but this is a weird instance to suddenly get coy.

HIV has effective prevention through both condom use and pre-exposure prophylactic treatment. The vaccine is a big deal in reducing costs, but, it's not as big a deal as the flu vaccine (or even as big as HPV was).

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#197

Post by tkinom »

credit_guy wrote: post #141

One of these is for the little known Nipah virus. This virus is really scary. Like the Coronavirus, it jumps to humans from bats. Unlike the Coronavirus, it is extremely lethal. In the last outbreak, in 2018 [1], the case fatality rate was 89%. Fortunately, there were only 19 cases (17 died). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Nipah_virus_outbreak_in_K...

It happened so infrequently. How are they plan to test the vaccine on people?

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#198

Post by jszymborski »

Clearly Flu, HIV, and Nipah are more pressing, but I found myself wondering last night what the odds are of a rhinovirus vaccine being in the cards thanks to rapid progress SARS-CoV-2 has pressed us to make w.r.t. RNA and protein-like vaccines.

Economics is the largest barrier in my mind. While my understanding is that these vaccines are less expensive to produce, it's hard to convince people to get the flu shot, let alone a common cold shot. What's more is that with hundreds of variants, it's efficacy would be hard to get right.

That said, I'd gladly pay a heft amount yearly if it meant I had a >60% chance of not catching a cold that year.

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#199

Post by monopoledance »

atian wrote: post #153
KraftKacke wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a very scientific approach as a vaccine may have other effects on the symptoms. Finding lingering bacteria would be the right call. Autopsy or biopsy. And then get better testing, less "false positive". With no specific (set of) symptoms, symptom based evidence seems inherently weak.

Bacteria is latent. CFS is not not strep throat. Generally body-wide immune dysfunction is present. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19393200/

Yes, but we're interested in the _causal relationship aren't we?

I don't see how the linked article contributes to your argument.

Tho, it's an interesting read and a warning to those supplementing vitamin D like it's the solution to everything.

Re: Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs

#200

Post by alex_stoddard »

elicash wrote: post #178

Sorry if this is a stupid question, and I'm sure this is very positive news. But one question I didn't find an answer to in the press release: what's the value of using mRNA for flu vaccine? Will it result in a safer or more effective vaccine? Be cheaper and easier to produce? Something else? I (mostly) understand the mRNA process, just curious about why it'd be superior.

Uninformed speculation: I would hypothesize the mRNA process could react faster to flu mutations, the current vaccines are kind of trying to guess which strains are going to be important in the next flu season. It is also possible the mRNA technology could cover a broader spectrum of flu antigens.

Influenza genetics are weird: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/change.htm

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06945

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp0904819

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