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Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

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Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#81

Post by bugglebeetle »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63
bugglebeetle wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mRNA vaccine production methods are tough, e.g. Moderna’s encapsulation technology …and were invented with publicly-funded research that they’ve now privatized, resulting in large death tolls from vaccine inequity in poor countries.

> were invented with publicly-funded research that they’ve now privatized, resulting in large death tolls from vaccine inequity in poor countries This is an odd complaint for this circumstance. Those poor countries didn’t materially fund these vaccines’ development. And production was fundamentally constrained; nations entered into bidding wars to secure them. In the end, geopolitics dictated which vaccines—if any—po…

It’s not at all odd because we learned the disastrous, widespread international consequences, of privatization of HIV/AIDS treatments in the 90s and 2000s. Treatments were developed with publicly-funded research in rich western countries, hoarded for profit at the cost of mass death in the developing world, which led to increased severity of the disease from unchecked spread, which then spread back into the countries that hoarded them. There is nothing more fundamentally stupid than trying to manage global pandemics with nationalism and IP restrictions in a world with interconnected economies and constant international travel.

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#82

Post by mewpmewp2 »

neverrroot wrote: post #79
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a key difference here that cancer mRNA vaccine you are taking after you've been diagnosed with cancer. Otherwise for Coronavirus vaccines you couldn't argue that risks are much smaller for any given person under any given conditions. E.g. a person could be completely isolated for the next 10 years and have virtually 0% chance of getting Covid-19, so in this case there's no calculation that could show a vaccin…

I would argue that any person isolating for 10 years will for sure have very significant health drawbacks, so that would also have to be factored in.

You mean in terms of immune system not having been exposed to enough pathogens?

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#83

Post by lawlessone »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #60
azan_ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otherwise for Coronavirus vaccines you couldn't argue that risks are much smaller for any given person under any given conditions. E.g. a person could be completely isolated for the next 10 years and have virtually 0% chance of getting Covid-19, so in this case there's no calculation that could show a vaccine being with more favourable benefits/risks. Well yes, in completely absurd and unrealistic situation the risk…

> Well yes, in completely absurd and unrealistic situation the risk of taking vaccine might be larger than that of Covid-19. What about a person living in simple solitude who works remotely and orders everything in? This is a realistic, non-absurd scenario and they would possibly risk getting Covid-19 on their way to the appointment of getting the vaccine.

> What about a person living in simple solitude who works remotely and orders everything in? This is a realistic, non-absurd scenario and they would possibly risk getting Covid-19 on their way to the appointment of getting the vaccine.

The biggest whine from anti-vaxers was that they were being told they needed a vaccine to do social things they enjoyed , like air travel or coughing on the elderly.

I don't think you're hypothetical neo-hermit would being doing either of these, so itseems unlikely they'll be "forced" to get a vaccine.

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#84

Post by lumb63 »

jph wrote: post #57
mberning wrote: post #37

Should this really be called a “vaccine”? I feel like that is going to give people the wrong impression about what it does. I think labelling it gene therapy, immune therapy, or something like that would be closer to what it actually does. Also really interested to see if people will need and/or benefit from periodic re-treatment. I guess they can figure that part out if it makes it to market.

Yes this should really be called a vaccine. A vaccine is a preparation that stimulates the body's immune response against diseases. For example, a specific vaccine injection (such as a flu shot) can boost the body's own immune system to help protect against a specific disease (such as the year's flu variant).

All previous vaccines were aimed at preventing infectious diseases. None of them are (primarily) indicated for preventing recurrence of a non-infectious disease. Whether it meets the technical definition or not, we can probably agree this is fundamentally different to all other vaccines.

Also, since no other vaccines are custom to each patient, using the term “vaccine” could cause confusion. Do we really want to give people the idea that they can be “vaccinated against melanoma” when the reality is that they can receive a treatment to prevent their specific melanoma, which they have to have already had, from recurring? It seems laden with confusion. Personally, I’ll just call it immunotherapy.

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#85

Post by neverrroot »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #72
lawlessone wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You should do the healthy things to avoid cancer in the first place What are those?

There's a certain set of healthy recommendations, but to clarify none of them will absolve the risk completely.

Nothing can absolve the risk completely, it’s all about probabilities. And even if the odds are for something, there are outliers and the genes.

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#86

Post by ethanbond »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #78
ethanbond wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone would care about such a person opting not to get a vaccine. But this describes, pretty much by definition, a very small portion of a society.

It's not about what anyone cares, but about making calculated decisions.

What

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#87

Post by neverrroot »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #82
neverrroot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that any person isolating for 10 years will for sure have very significant health drawbacks, so that would also have to be factored in.

You mean in terms of immune system not having been exposed to enough pathogens?

Not only, psychological consequences, lack of socialization, potentially lack of sun exposure, lack of getting medical checkups or adequate treatment etc.

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#88

Post by mewpmewp2 »

neverrroot wrote: post #87
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean in terms of immune system not having been exposed to enough pathogens?

Not only, psychological consequences, lack of socialization, potentially lack of sun exposure, lack of getting medical checkups or adequate treatment etc.

Would depend on the individual right. Not everyone requires socialisation.

Isolation doesn't mean lack of sun exposure.

Medical checkups would depend on the age and healthiness of the person.

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#89

Post by ryukafalz »

neverrroot wrote: post #87
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean in terms of immune system not having been exposed to enough pathogens?

Not only, psychological consequences, lack of socialization, potentially lack of sun exposure, lack of getting medical checkups or adequate treatment etc.

Along with the health drawbacks of a sedentary lifestyle, unless you're vigilant about getting enough intentional exercise to replace the walking around we do over the course of a typical day outside the house.

Re: Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought

#90

Post by mlyle »

junofan wrote: post #74
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> failed clinical trials in the 2000s and 2010s We didn’t start testing neoantigen mRNA cancer vaccines until 2017 [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8942458/

IIRC from when Moderna started getting hot back in 2012 the preclinical trials weren’t going well. I think those were running ca. 2004–2005. Moderna took the infectious disease approach.

This is an oversimplification, but:

Moderna mostly took an initial infectious disease approach because extant mRNA formulations at the time provoked too much of an immune response that neutralized the effectiveness of subsequent dosing. There's a goldilocks amount of immune response you want-- too little and the immune system doesn't learn the antigens you'd like, but too much makes it miss the mark and focus too much on the formulation of the vaccine itself.

For a cancer vaccine that you want to dose multiple times (9 times in this study) to keep up peak immune response this is a problem. For infectious disease, where some early sensitization of the immune system can be enough, it's not so bad.

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