Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

pfizer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 271 posts

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#191

Post by bluGill »

bildung wrote: post #98
ianhawes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest investment that Pfizer made was the creation of a way to reliably manufacture mRNA vaccines. Now they must recoup those investments.

To my knowledge Pfizer didn't really invest anything, it was the German population who financed Biontech through funds paid with taxes: the lab infrastructure pre-covid (through funded cancer research), the vaccine trials, and mass production (both directly and through pre-purchases before the vaccine existed).

Biontech invested in the early research. Pfizer invested a lot more into manufacturing and the trials. Both are needed at different times. What Pfizer invested in was a lot lower risk (don't confuse that with low risk - it wasn't except by comparison!), but they invested far more money.

Quit trying to sell either short - without both investments we would be in lockdown yet.

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#192

Post by burntwater »

mantas wrote: post #21
aixi wrote: post #3

Ever since I moved to the 'first world' I've been scared of this disease. We don't have it where I come from and the long term effects sound straight up terrible.

It's super easy to treat if caught early. But that's where the good ends. Vast majority of cases present the infamous circle. But some don't. And if you got the circle in a hard-to-notice spot, it's easy to miss it (it will a month or two into infection) too. First precaution is to check your legs (and possibly torso/hands) for ticks after passing through high grass. And whole body after coming from the woods. The na…

Mostly good advice, except for the one comment:

>Vast majority of cases present the infamous circle. But some don't.

I believe it's actually the other way around, only 20-30% of cases show the "typical" bullseye.

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#193

Post by bluGill »

ianhawes wrote: post #130
lampe3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name any big company that does not work that way? Like Apple, Facebook, Ford, Tesla, Nestle ect ect. And what would be an alternative?

My understanding is that it has been known for years that mRNA is a viable vaccine delivery vector, but the R&D hadn't been completed for the other aspect of the business - production and safety at scale.

No, mRNA was suspected to be viable, but it was never proven. Like most new medical developments the early tests showed it didn't work and those needed to be worked around. Some believers did the research to make it work, but they had their detractors who said they were wasting there time as the problems weren't solvable. This time the detractors were proven wrong, but there have been other cases where more effort was put into something with no result (at least so far?)

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#194

Post by foxhop »

About 8 weeks ago I was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme Disease and I put my story up on YouTube to try to help others, let's just say it's a crazy ride downhill if you neglect the bacterial infection:

https://youtu.be/xbPr7DHwSIw

In the video I talk about the treatment I followed to recover.

Today symptoms appear gone but there have been testimony of hidden, lingering, or reoccurring issues after infection.

All that said, I still do not fully trust mRNA vaccines. Ticks carry a huge array of illness, bacteria and virus besides just BB.

If you are into Permaculture or Solar Punk, my 1/3 acre plot has a mini Food Forest and is a stones throw away from Lyme Connecticut where Lyme Disease was first observed affecting people and children. Like the video if you want to see more.

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#195

Post by shusaku »

Thaxll wrote: post #7

Why is it a vaccine? Are there going to be vaccine for everything in the future?

It’s because the human immune system is superb at fighting off disease, so it turns out it’s easier to just prime it than to create our own way to kill viruses.

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#197

Post by CountDrewku »

Ensorceled wrote: post #170
CountDrewku wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ticks carrying Lyme disease are exploding in Ontario, probably because of climate change. Do you have proof of this?

Which part do want proof of? Google "ticks in ontario increasing" for literally dozens of references. The "probably climate change" is supposition, hence the "probably" disclaimer, but a lot of those references above blame "milder winters" or climate change directly.

>The "probably climate change" is supposition, hence the "probably"

Then maybe just leave it out next time. I'm tired of people claiming climate change is responsible with no data to back it up for every natural event. That's no better than someone claiming global warming doesn't exist because they have a cold week of snow.

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#198

Post by epistasis »

ghaff wrote: post #174
jashephe wrote: post #119

I'm confused. Where does this say the vaccine is mRNA? The Valneva VLA15 website explicitly states "VLA15 is a multivalent recombinant protein vaccine" [1], and the linked press release calls it a "investigational multivalent protein subunit vaccine". Does nobody actually read these things? See [2], "Subunit Vaccines". [1] https://valneva.com/research-development/lyme-disease/ [2] https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/v…

I've heard it described as such but, no, it seems to be a distinct if perhaps somewhat related type of vaccine? (UPDATED: It's not.) The company that actually created the vaccine is also unrelated to the company that developed the vaccine that Pfizer is currently distributing for COVID.

There is no relation to mRNA vaccine tech, this is a traditional style of protein vaccine.

https://valneva.com/research-development/lyme-disease/

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#199

Post by Gupie »

How effective would such a vaccine need to be? A vaccine of say 70% might be effective enough for herd immunity for a disease that is contagious person to person. But you don't get Lyme disease from other people so herd immunity is not possible, unless the intention is to inoculate deer, (no pun intended).

Re: Valneva and Pfizer announce Phase 2 study for Lyme disease vaccine candidate

#200

Post by Spellman »

graywh wrote: post #189
inglor_cz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it means rerunning the trials again. These requirements will have to be loosened for anti-Covid vaccines. They are tailored to other diseases, but SARS-CoV-2 mutates too fast. The flu vaccine has an exception, too, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to prepare the correct vaccine (against the expected dominant strain) on time.

isn't the flu vaccine just a cocktail of existing vaccines tailored to the strains we predict will be active?

Sort of.

It's a cocktail of vaccines against the expected dominant strains based on data of strains in the opposite hemisphere because it mutates too quickly to produce a targeted vaccine against any specific strain before it arrives.

But I believe they can develop the vaccine fresh as new strains arrive, as well as reuse previous vaccine strains.

Post reply on HN