Live data from Hacker News

Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

blogs.sciencemag.org

11–20 of 124 posts

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#11
A reminder that "U.S. officials pushed Brazil to reject Russia’s coronavirus vaccine" [0] for political reasons.

> Under a section titled “Combating malign influences in the Americas,” the HHS report states that countries including Russia “are working to increase their influence in the region to the detriment of US safety and security.” The global affairs office coordinated with other U.S. government agencies “to dissuade countries in the region from accepting aid from these ill-intentioned states,” it says.

The concerted effort to smear the Russian vaccine is clearly the Western version of the anti-vaccine misinformation Russia has been accused of spreading. Textbook projection.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/16/hhs-brazil-s...

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#12
post #2

I wonder how much we are seeing general problems with adenovirus vector vaccines (e.g. blood clotting and this manufacturing issue) only because we've never rolled a vaccine out to a large population so quickly. Regulatory agencies are likely afraid to approve any at this point, which does not bode well for other vaccines using the same technology.

Intuitively speaking, using a viral vector has inherent risks that aren’t present with mRNA or protein subunit vaccines. To the extent that the latter technologies prove effective for vaccines against various viruses, I would think viral vectors should not be a preferred technology going forward for vaccine development.

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#13

For me, this really calls into question the efficacy numbers published for the Gamaleya vaccine. e.g.: The Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) have reported that the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine showed a 97.6% efficacy. [0] [0]: https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/russia-sputni...

Lancet seems to be a respected journal and it confirms those numbers.

Just a reminder that the journals don't reproduce the research before publishing the article. They only check that somewhat intelligible, somewhat new, somewhat interesting. The more serious the journal, the more strict the checks.

So the numbers are not confirmed by the Lancet, they are just published in the Lancet. It's much better than reading numbers that are published in a blog, but it's not a 100% proof that they are correct.

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#14

A reminder that "U.S. officials pushed Brazil to reject Russia’s coronavirus vaccine" [0] for political reasons. > Under a section titled “Combating malign influences in the Americas,” the HHS report states that countries including Russia “are working to increase their influence in the region to the detriment of US safety and security.” The global affairs office coordinated with other U.S. government agencies “to dis…

Brazilian here, but just a regular guy, I didn't dug deep into this. Anvisa (our health regulatory agency) is well stablished before current president, supposedly independant and more often considered in opposition to current government. I find it unlikely that they are fabricating a rejection and more likely they are being cientific about it.

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#15
post #14

A reminder that "U.S. officials pushed Brazil to reject Russia’s coronavirus vaccine" [0] for political reasons. > Under a section titled “Combating malign influences in the Americas,” the HHS report states that countries including Russia “are working to increase their influence in the region to the detriment of US safety and security.” The global affairs office coordinated with other U.S. government agencies “to dis…

Brazilian here, but just a regular guy, I didn't dug deep into this. Anvisa (our health regulatory agency) is well stablished before current president, supposedly independant and more often considered in opposition to current government. I find it unlikely that they are fabricating a rejection and more likely they are being cientific about it.

Same here. If what they say is true, that there was viral reproduction in the vacine, theres no way is gonna pass. They schedule a session in congress with Anvisa to defend their position, and decided to not show up to the meeting. The resistance in allowing European heath agencies entering and inspecting it's labs is also a bad sign.

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazilian here, but just a regular guy, I didn't dug deep into this. Anvisa (our health regulatory agency) is well stablished before current president, supposedly independant and more often considered in opposition to current government. I find it unlikely that they are fabricating a rejection and more likely they are being cientific about it.

Same here. If what they say is true, that there was viral reproduction in the vacine, theres no way is gonna pass. They schedule a session in congress with Anvisa to defend their position, and decided to not show up to the meeting. The resistance in allowing European heath agencies entering and inspecting it's labs is also a bad sign.

I talked with a friend with ties in Anvisa. After all the bullshit the current president make they go through, with all the hydroxychloroquine thing, they kind of done a no interference pact over there among the staff, to not allow political pressure to dictate the result of their work. That say, nothing is immune to politics. But I don't think this was the case.

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#19

For me, this really calls into question the efficacy numbers published for the Gamaleya vaccine. e.g.: The Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) have reported that the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine showed a 97.6% efficacy. [0] [0]: https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/russia-sputni...

Lancet seems to be a respected journal and it confirms those numbers.

Most scientific journals only do peer-review by sending articles to other scientists. These scientists, most of the time, only check for logical errors, and are not able to replicate the experiments.

Re: Brazil Rejects the Gamaleya Vaccine

#20

For me, this really calls into question the efficacy numbers published for the Gamaleya vaccine. e.g.: The Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) have reported that the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine showed a 97.6% efficacy. [0] [0]: https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/russia-sputni...

Lancet seems to be a respected journal and it confirms those numbers.

it's important to make clear that what make the vacine being reject was not because of this number. The problem is that they remove the dna part of the virus that allow it to replicate once injected. But in all samples that they tested, in multiple batchs, they found replicant Adenovirus, that could make people who received the vacine sick.

That said, this is not a total rejection of the vacine. This is a rejection of the batches that where going to be imported. There are plan to produce this vacine in Brazil, and this batches could be approved in the future, if they did not find the same problems.

Post reply on HN