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Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#51

Post by gcanyon »

Palomides wrote: post #48
gcanyon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [greater activity within] our immune systems long-term can't be healthy Not trying to be flip, but why? "Natural" isn't always better, and as the obesity epidemic has shown, our evolutionary past hasn't done a perfect job of preparing us for our current environment. You might be right, but I'm skeptical that there is any non-extreme limit to something as simple and mechanical as our innate immune system.

calling the immune system simple and mechanical is completely wild, like half of americans have some kind of medically diagnosable immune dysfunction

The immune system operates at level far below where we get "tired" -- worrying that we'll "use up" the immune system seems similar to worrying that exercise will "use up" our lifetime allotment of heartbeats.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#52

Post by mcdeltat »

What intrigued me the most is why their vaccine reduces allergic reactions too. If the allergic reaction is an immune response, why does administering the vaccine which increases immune response result in a decreased allergic reaction? I'd expect the opposite.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#53

Post by dang »

asacrowflies wrote: post #12
dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #5

[flagged]

[flagged]

We've banned this account for egregiously breaking the site guidelines. You can't post like this here, no matter how wrong other users are or you feel they are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567569

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46541957

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46540675

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46540551

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46388711

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#54

Post by gcanyon »

SecretDreams wrote: post #50
gcanyon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [greater activity within] our immune systems long-term can't be healthy Not trying to be flip, but why? "Natural" isn't always better, and as the obesity epidemic has shown, our evolutionary past hasn't done a perfect job of preparing us for our current environment. You might be right, but I'm skeptical that there is any non-extreme limit to something as simple and mechanical as our innate immune system.

Normally when your immune system is on high alert for a prolonged period of time, it can lead to more false positives and trigger auto immune issues.

But this is talking about the innate vs. the adaptive immune system. I am not a medical professional, but it seems like the innate system is either maladapted or not. In any case, I don't think it's fair to assume that your "common sense" overrides my skepticism.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#55

Post by MarkusQ »

lokar wrote: post #17
MarkusQ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systemic cost. We could have paper shredders, blenders, toasters, water taps, and so on that just ran all the time, but our utility bills would be ginormous. Same thing for our bodies.

Or the risk of autoimmune disease?

Yep. And probably increased allergies. Possibly decreased fertility. And who knows what else.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#56

Post by infinitewars »

torgoguys wrote: post #3

I don't know much about this, but wouldn't the description of this imply you're stimulating the body to be in an a long-term situation that would be commonly viewed as unpleasant (inflamed, maybe nasal drainage, that type of thing) with the positive tradeoff that you get fewer actual infections?

Yes, I've had exactly this ever since my first COVID experience. If I come across anyone with even a tiny level of COVID or flu, it sets of inflammation in my lungs within minutes. Haven't gotten sick in six years now but this inflammation has happened probably one hundred times and is indeed quite unpleasant.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#57

Post by mcdeltat »

gcanyon wrote: post #54
SecretDreams wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally when your immune system is on high alert for a prolonged period of time, it can lead to more false positives and trigger auto immune issues.

But this is talking about the innate vs. the adaptive immune system. I am not a medical professional, but it seems like the innate system is either maladapted or not. In any case, I don't think it's fair to assume that your "common sense" overrides my skepticism.

There are likely biological pros and cons between innate and adaptive, such that using the innate response for everything is not desirable.

The innate response is less targeted, less effective, and causes potentially damaging effects like inflammation. The adaptive response is more targeted and more effective, with the tradeoff that it needs to be learnt.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#58

Post by kenjackson »

mcdeltat wrote: post #52

What intrigued me the most is why their vaccine reduces allergic reactions too. If the allergic reaction is an immune response, why does administering the vaccine which increases immune response result in a decreased allergic reaction? I'd expect the opposite.

Allergies are not simply overactive immune response. It’s the wrong type of response. What’s really intriguing is how much we can do innate immunity that we have done relatively little with.

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#59

Post by SilentM68 »

stevenalowe wrote: post #29
SilentM68 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Disagree. Prevention of many things via broad immunity seems superior to alleged multiple alleged Cures

Perhaps, but all I've seen in my lifetime is the management of diseases and conditions. For prevention to work, food production needs to change. Doctors, hospitals, colleges used to be free, medicines used to cure (e.g. polio vaccine), doctors experimented on themselves. What changed? In my view, greed, was added to the equation, in all fields, medicine, education (e.g. teachers teach as a means to retire, doctors don't do research). AI is going to fix that for everyone, in my view :|

Re: Universal vaccine against respiratory infections and allergens

#60

Post by ivan_gammel »

gcanyon wrote: post #34
ivan_gammel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or worse. If it is so easy to activate, there must be an evolutionary reason why we don’t have it.

I think you have evolution backwards. There only needs to not be a reason we need it to survive long enough to reproduce. Or more probabilistically, there needs to not be a significant reproductive benefit to it. And bear in mind that most people don't have a problem surviving colds and the like long enough to reproduce even with no vaccines at all, and that was probably more true for much of our evolutionary history…

>There only needs to not be a reason we need it to survive long enough to reproduce.

Humans had life expectancy even shorter than our fertility period until recently and they developed as social species hundreds of thousands years ago, for which living beyond fertility period is beneficial (grandparents were invented by evolution too).

> And bear in mind that most people don't have a problem surviving colds

That’s modern people with access to antibiotics etc.

> that was probably more true for much of our evolutionary history when we were living much more isolated lives, and not cohabiting with chickens and pigs

For much of our evolutionary history people were eating animals, getting viruses with them.

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