A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way • Hacker News Board

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#251

Post by patall » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

exhilaration wrote: post #227

zz865 wrote: post #48

Lyme is just one of the horrible diseases ticks carry. Would be nice to cull most of the deer in the North East. A few decades ago they were rare, now they're everywhere.

Ticks are on all small mammals - field mice [1], rabbits, etc. Culling the deer won't be enough. [1] Check out these tick tubes: https://blogs.cornell.edu/nysipm/2019/06/28/dont-make-your-o...

Ticks and Lyme are also transmitted by birds (i.e https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210127093213.h...). Especially migrating birds are a big issue as more and more 'tropic' ticks end up north.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#252

Post by tablespoon » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

hitpointdrew wrote: post #239

wildmanx wrote: post #236

What shocks me most with this story is that there is a vaccine (Lymerix), and it's pretty effective (76-92 percent after three injections) but apparently some anti-vax propaganda and a class-action lawsuit essentially removed it from the market. Based on a very rare side effect. Wtf? How can that be? Just tell people the risks of side effects, and if they are ok with that risk then the manufacturer is off the hook. I…

>but apparently some anti-vax propaganda and a class-action lawsuit essentially removed it from the market. Based on a very rare side effect. Wtf? How can that be? It wasn't "very rare" and the side effect was that it literally gave people lym disease. Why are vaccinations a political thing now, and if anyone raises any questions whatsoever on any vaccine they are "anit-vax".

> It wasn't "very rare" and the side effect was that it literally gave people lym disease.

It sounds like it didn't actually do that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Vaccination:

> Subsequently, hundreds of vaccine recipients reported they had developed autoimmune and other side effects. Supported by some advocacy groups, a number of class-action lawsuits were filed against GlaxoSmithKline, alleging the vaccine had caused these health problems. These claims were investigated by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control, which found no connection between the vaccine and the autoimmune complaints.[170]

> Despite the lack of evidence that the complaints were caused by the vaccine, sales plummeted and LYMErix was withdrawn from the U.S. market by GlaxoSmithKline in February 2002,[171] in the setting of negative media coverage and fears of vaccine side effects.[170][172] The fate of LYMErix was described in the medical literature as a "cautionary tale";[172] an editorial in Nature cited the withdrawal of LYMErix as an instance in which "unfounded public fears place pressures on vaccine developers that go beyond reasonable safety considerations."[25] The original developer of the OspA vaccine at the Max Planck Institute told Nature: "This just shows how irrational the world can be ... There was no scientific justification for the first OspA vaccine LYMErix being pulled."[170]

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#253

Post by acdha » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #143

acdha wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you intended this to be reassuring but consider how it reads to the many people who’ve had significant, long-term effects from the disease. Maybe tone it down a bit on the “no big deal” front and focus on the key part: “if promptly diagnosed” with the advice about prevention and detection that implies.

I think it's just a difference in perspective from someone living where it's endemic and pretty much impossible to outright prevent. You get used to it. You hear similar perspectives on malaria from people living in countriew where that is rife. And indeed on other dangers. For example, australians don't tend to see poisonous snakes or spiders as a big deal.

Oh, definitely — my point was simply that it's good to think about how that would sound to someone who _isn't_ used to that risk. Saying “no big deal” runs the risk of sounding like ”I don't know what I'm talking about” or even “I'm downplaying this for some reason”. I don't think the person I replied to was in either category but I do think with medical concerns it's important to acknowledge that someone's concerns are reasonable before introducing some things which might make the risk more palatable (e.g. doctors now are far more likely to quickly recognize it and treat it aggressively since there's been a lot of awareness that this is becoming endemic in many areas where it didn't used to be common).

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#254

Post by pwenzel » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

wildmanx wrote: post #236

What shocks me most with this story is that there is a vaccine (Lymerix), and it's pretty effective (76-92 percent after three injections) but apparently some anti-vax propaganda and a class-action lawsuit essentially removed it from the market. Based on a very rare side effect. Wtf? How can that be? Just tell people the risks of side effects, and if they are ok with that risk then the manufacturer is off the hook. I…

I live in Minnesota and am being treated for Lyme disease for the second time in 15 months. It's no joke. The first time I got Lyme, it came with a painful shingles co-infection on top of the usual symptoms.

Now the second time, I am again worried about getting sick with something else while in an immunocompromised state. The fatigue, fever, and back pain that came along this second time was worse than the first. I needed a nap after walking up the stairs.

So, I am curious how bad and prolonged the side effects were in these 59 adverse events. If only temporary, I'd consider it worth it over getting the actual disease.

The article also asks, "Why vaccinate against something that can be cured with antibiotics?" Undiagnosed Lyme becomes harder to treat the longer you wait, and the dose of antibiotics longer and more intense.

(PS: I am so very thankful for doxycycline.)

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#255

Post by _greim_ » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #232

hannob wrote: post #2

The article touches this briefly: I think it's horrible that the antivax movement successfully managed to push a working lyme vaccine off the market, based on concerns that turned out to be false. Every time you get a tick you should remember that you could be safe from lyme, but the antivax movement took that away from us.

You're oversimplifying the issue which is described in some detail in the article. Yes, the antivax movement is killing thousands of people with their opposition to COVID vaccines, but that doesn't mean every vaccine ever studied was good, or that the FDA is infallible. I'm not saying it was good that Lymerix was pulled from the market. I think it's unclear. I just think we shouldn't let (justified) passion on one co…

Yeah, one of the terrible things about the anti-vax movement is that it makes it hard to distinguish signal from noise when looking at objections or criticisms of any vaccine.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#256

Post by patall » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #104

I’ve found the biggest places to watch out for ticks are where not many people go. Little travelled trails. The heavily trafficked areas seem to have way less ticks. My working theory is the deer to human ratio of an area determines how many deer ticks.

My grandma just got Lyme with pretty high certainty in her own garden. In suburbia in a million people city. With a deer:people ratio of about 0.00.

From my understanding, ticks can be in any type of grass. If you somehow touch grass of any type, be it walking, sitting or hand-mowing, there is a chance of picking one up. Sure, there are few ticks in very populated areas, but I would rather guess that more people equates to more likelyness that someone else already picked up the ticks in that area. And obviously: there is less grass were many people go.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#257

Post by jefurii » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

hitpointdrew wrote: post #239

wildmanx wrote: post #236

What shocks me most with this story is that there is a vaccine (Lymerix), and it's pretty effective (76-92 percent after three injections) but apparently some anti-vax propaganda and a class-action lawsuit essentially removed it from the market. Based on a very rare side effect. Wtf? How can that be? Just tell people the risks of side effects, and if they are ok with that risk then the manufacturer is off the hook. I…

>but apparently some anti-vax propaganda and a class-action lawsuit essentially removed it from the market. Based on a very rare side effect. Wtf? How can that be? It wasn't "very rare" and the side effect was that it literally gave people lym disease. Why are vaccinations a political thing now, and if anyone raises any questions whatsoever on any vaccine they are "anit-vax".

"Possible side effects" includes any condition that arose during the trial, whether or not it was directly caused by the vaccine being tested. Source: a family member has a job that involves drug trials.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#258

Post by aquadrop » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #243

wildmanx wrote: post #236

What shocks me most with this story is that there is a vaccine (Lymerix), and it's pretty effective (76-92 percent after three injections) but apparently some anti-vax propaganda and a class-action lawsuit essentially removed it from the market. Based on a very rare side effect. Wtf? How can that be? Just tell people the risks of side effects, and if they are ok with that risk then the manufacturer is off the hook. I…

There is a difference between vaccine skeptic and anti-vax. Imagine if we didn't have people watching over our tech industry because that would be anti-tech, or our banking industry because that's anti-bank. No, we call them skeptics because we realize that's very different than someone who says "abolish tech and banks."

They literally killed this vaccine, so it's anti-vax by definition in result.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#259

Post by _greim_ » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

wiz21c wrote: post #7

hannob wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand the vaccine wasn't taken off the market by the FDA or science. It was taken off the market by the company producing it, due to pressure from lawsuits and bullshit concerns about risks.

I'm not antivax but if the company is sure its vaccine is safe, why should they fear lawsuits ?

If they completed the trials then they'd have some protection against major lawsuits. But no amount of legal protection would prevent low sales due to widespread public mistrust. Especially at a time when Lyme wasn't as rampant and terror-inducing as it is now.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#260

Post by pwenzel » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

spicybright wrote: post #23

As a US new england-er, this is game changer for walking through woods. For those un-informed, on a walk through any woods, you should always wear high socks, and do a full body check for ticks after. Deer ticks can be as small as a few grains of sand, and near undetectable if they latch on unless you have sharp eyes. Obviously they can transmit lymes. I had a close encounter a few years ago, but very luckily giant r…

Here are a few pictures of a deer tick that bit me in 2020. I got pretty sick from it. Penny and ruler for scale:

https://imgur.com/a/xgF5Zw2

Its body quit tiny is just over 1mm in width.

I got it either sitting in a field of grass that was a few inches tall, or walking through some brush for 5 minutes a Minneapolis park. I wasn't out doing anything exciting like hunting for morels in old growth forests.