Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on January 14, 2018, 10:38:49 AM
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The interesting part of this story for me was that annual flu vaccine research only gets funded in the tens of millions, while HIV get $1 billion annually. The math on priority should be pretty simple, but I guess not.
I'm by no means an anti-vaxer, but have never received a flu shot in my life. I might be more inclined to get one if the vaccine was better and longer lasting, versus an annual roll of the dice. Seems like it would take a lot more research funding to get to that point.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/opinion/flu-pandemic-universal-vaccine.html
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I just got over the flu.
It's a fun one this year.
FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.
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The interesting part of this story for me was that annual flu vaccine research only gets funded in the tens of millions, while HIV get $1 billion annually. The math on priority should be pretty simple, but I guess not.
I'm by no means an anti-vaxer, but have never received a flu shot in my life. I might be more inclined to get one if the vaccine was better and longer lasting, versus an annual roll of the dice. Seems like it would take a lot more research funding to get to that point.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/opinion/flu-pandemic-universal-vaccine.html
Influenza is constantly morphing, like the common cold it would impossible to create a lasting or 100% annual vaccine.
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Influenza is constantly morphing, like the common cold it would impossible to create a lasting or 100% annual vaccine.
The story implies researchers are looking at multi-year vaccines for the "A" strain.
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I just got over the flu.
It's a fun one this year.
FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.
We've had I think 12 deaths this year in the county so far. My plumber fell and hit his head a couple of weeks ago, and had to wait 7 hours in the emergency room to be diagnosed with a severe concussion that had him hospitalized for two days, because almost everyone in front of him was there for the flu.
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Read a story about the flu, and some complicating factors. A lot of hospitals are having trouble getting supplies, like IV fluids, because there's a shortage of IV bags. Turns out the major suppliers of bags and other medical equipment are in Puerto Rico. A lot of hospitals are pushing fluids using Gatorade as opposed to using IVs. Not exactly the best way to push fluids into someone really sick...
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there's a shortage of IV bags. Turns out the major suppliers of bags and other medical equipment are in Puerto Rico
Something about putting all your eggs in one shithole basket...
I had to take the annual flu shot when I was in the Navy. Haven't taken one since I got 25 years ago. Since then I cannot definitively say I've had a case of flu.
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I suppose you would say I'm moderately anti flu vaccine. At least it should be a personal choice and not pushed at people so much.
The effectiveness of the flu shot is debatable. Atleast a couple euro national health plans dropped it. I believ adverse reactions are underreported. It bothers me that the US govt is the sole purchaser of all flu vaccines and then distributes and promotes it and the govt and many politicians have too many cozy relationships with pharma.
I've had the flu one time in the past 20 years and never had a flu shot. So personally, I'll take my chances.
I'm not against individuals making an informed decision assuming that information is unbiased, but I don't support the mass vaccination of everyone and aggressive marketing and subsidizing of flu shots.
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I just got over the flu.
It's a fun one this year.
That it is. I'm not quite over it. It just lingers and lingers.
FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.
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I just got over the flu.
It's a fun one this year.
FWIW I also had the vaccine this year.
I'm still getting over it. Came down with it on Christmas day. I've managed to make it to work for a single half day in the three weeks since Christmas.
I also had a flu shot. Maybe it would have been worse without the shot, but I don't know how much worse it could possibly be.
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I imagine it has the ability to be much worse, that is if you consider a dirt nap worse than an extended illness. =|
https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882622/flu-season-epidemic-prevention-vaccine
bob
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I imagine it has the ability to be much worse, that is if you consider a dirt nap worse than an extended illness. =|
https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882622/flu-season-epidemic-prevention-vaccine
bob
"First I was afraid I was going to die ... then I was afraid I wasn't."
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Fun fact: in recent years, more and more healthcare systems are requiring employees to have the flu vaccine and will fire you if you decline. The court decisions on this are all over the map in terms if you can be successfully fired for refusing the vaccine: in some states you can, and in others you cannot.
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Fun fact: in recent years, more and more healthcare systems are requiring employees to have the flu vaccine and will fire you if you decline. The court decisions on this are all over the map in terms if you can be successfully fired for refusing the vaccine: in some states you can, and in others you cannot.
.mil requires an annual flu vaccine. Including Reserves and NG.
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I generally don't get the flu shot. Many years where SWMBO did, and I didn't. She always would suffer much worse flu-like illnesses.
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Our local hospital system requires employees either get the flu shot or wear masks at all times during patient encounters.
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The story implies researchers are looking at multi-year vaccines for the "A" strain.
Mmm, yea, I really don't see that happening with A.
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I've gotten the flu shot for years and have managed to avoid getting the flu for years as well.
I'll note that immunity is a complicated thing when it comes to the flu, but one thing they have noted is that flu vaccines do actually last multiple years. IE if you have gotten the flu shot every year for the last 5 years, you are less likely to get the flu than if you only got this year's vaccine. The previous year's vaccine might be a better match for the virus you happen to be exposed to.
As Ben noted HIV gets about 10 times as much funding as Flu does, but some of this stuff overlaps. There's some fascinating research into targeting the parts of the virus that can't mutate as much and still be a functional virus for antibody development.
Basically, those who survive with the virus long enough will often develop antibodies that are basically like terminators for the HIV virus. They're so effective that patients with them often don't need antivirals or other drugs at all to keep their virus loads low enough to be considered non-infectious. Only because the virus is so widespread by that point, as well as being a retrovirus that can hide. The theory is that if a non-infected person has those antibodies, that the HIV can't spread far enough early enough, for it to create a sustained infection.
HIV infectees are most infectious after the first couple weeks until the first couple months, on average. After that, they're only highly infectious again when full blown AIDS starts.
So, if you can eliminate the first couple months where the virus is rampaging without opposition...
So vaccine research is going into how to most effectively teach somebody's body to make those antibodies in particular. HIV specifically, but much of the research can be adopted elsewhere.
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The CDC can eat it. They push a vaccine that is based off of old strains, which always and will always mutate to stay ahead of immunity, there is no promise of true immunity against any strain.
There is literally no benefit to the flu vaccine.
If you don't get regularly sick, it's because you wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people, and are generally healthy. A robust immune system due to diet, nutrition, and washing your hands regularly (plus not doing things like chewing your fingers or putting your fingers in your mouth unwashed) will keep you from getting sick.
When the CDC is now admitting that the flu vaccine doesn't work, that should give anyone considering it pause.
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The flu shot is just one part of a multilayered defense.
It's not a do all be all.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
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Influenza is constantly morphing, like the common cold it would impossible to create a lasting or 100% annual vaccine.
That.
influenza is a RNA virus- RNA replication doesn't have proofreading, so nearly every replication of the virus is a mutant.
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The flu shot is just one part of a multilayered defense.
It's not a do all be all.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
What he said.
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Something about putting all your eggs in one shithole basket...
Hadda laugh at that one. TNX fer the grin.
What's also amusing to me is that the complete word seems to have almost been made printable now. As opposed to being "unprintable."
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The flu shot is just one part of a multilayered defense.
It's not a do all be all.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
The flu shot is like trying to hit a moving target with an unguided missile.
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Mmm, yea, I really don't see that happening with A.
Well, NIH, which is staffed by people who know more about it than any of us here, thinks it will happen.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/universal-influenza-vaccine-research
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/universal-flu-shot-may-be-nearing-reality
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Well, NIH, which is staffed by people who know more about it than any of us here, thinks it will happen.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/universal-influenza-vaccine-research
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/universal-flu-shot-may-be-nearing-reality
A lot of "ifs" in the second article, even from the researchers.
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The flu shot is like trying to hit a moving target with an unguided missile.
;/
Don't you have a shithole to attend to? :rofl:
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Well, NIH, which is staffed by people who know more about it than any of us here, thinks it will happen.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/universal-influenza-vaccine-research
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/universal-flu-shot-may-be-nearing-reality
They have to say that in order to justify throwing more money at people who get paid for "researching" the problem. So we'll throw a few more million dllars into ten years more research, at the end of which they'll admit that it can't be done. Which we, and they, know already.
What I know is that every year I've allowed the VA hospital to give me a flu shot ... I've gotten the flu. This year was no exception. They claim the shot can't give you the flu, but every year I've had the shot I've gotten the flu. The years I didn't get a shot, I didn't get the flu. Anecdotal, but enough to give me pause.
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The problem isn't that the flu shot is giving you the flu.
The problem is when you get the flu shot you feel as if you're invincible.
Stop licking doorknobs after you get the flu shot and you'll be fine.
:rofl:
I tend to get the flu shot most years. Never got around to it this year, and from the sounds it likely wouldn't do much good were I to.
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Well, NIH, which is staffed by people who know more about it than any of us here, thinks it will happen.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/universal-influenza-vaccine-research
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/universal-flu-shot-may-be-nearing-reality
I figured it would have to be a protein that is found in every variant of a said virus. As mentioned in the article the common protein is not one that is normally detected by the immune system.
The Pandora's box is if you trigger to cause a new immune response, what else are you going to wake up? Certain proteins cause me to autoimmune, and it has gotten worse over the years. Doctors think I got bit by a tick several years ago and proteins from the tick bite has caused my immune system to go into overdrive when I eat beef or dried beans.
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So my wife has her cardiologist appointment this morning.
Low single digit temps and a few slick spots on the road, she didn't want to drive.
I'm sitting in the crowded waiting room where they've got the heat cranked up to "equatorial desert" and I think I'm the only one here not hacking a lung out.
*expletive deleted*ck I hate being around people.
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I'm given the flu shot every year. I really don't have much choice. I have not gotten the flu in many years. Mostly because I have to constantly practice thorough infection prevention. I've had peritonitis too many times already. Everyone is surprised that I can still do Peritoneal Dialysis and that I'm not doing Hemo Dialysis.
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I've had peritonitis too many times already.
That sucks... I can't add anymore.
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The problem isn't that the flu shot is giving you the flu.
The problem is when you get the flu shot you feel as if you're invincible.
Stop licking doorknobs after you get the flu shot and you'll be fine.
:rofl:
I tend to get the flu shot most years. Never got around to it this year, and from the sounds it likely wouldn't do much good were I to.
:rofl:
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Charby:
I figured it would have to be a protein that is found in every variant of a said virus. As mentioned in the article the common protein is not one that is normally detected by the immune system.
That kinda tickled something I've been wondering about for a couple of years.
Here, we've been designing, essentially, "weak" viruses to wake up the immune system, and the viruses change, so we can't keep up with it on an immunity basis.
Why can't we develop a viricide, as in a poison, that affects something common to all the related and mutated viruses, like plant-specific pesticides.
I mean, we've got pesticides/herbicides that are specific to broad-leaf weeds, but not, like grass and such.
Seems we've been running down the wrong track on this, and colds, for decades. Why can't we develop a "coldicide" and a "fluicide" specifically poisonous to something in those viruses?
As Charby seems to have touched on.
Terry, 230RN
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Charby:
That kinda tickled something I've been wondering about for a couple of years.
Here, we've been designing, essentially, "weak" viruses to wake up the immune system, and the viruses change, so we can't keep up with it on an immunity basis.
Why can't we develop a viricide, as in a poison, that affects something common to all the related and mutated viruses, like plant-specific pesticides.
I mean, we've got pesticides/herbicides that are specific to broad-leaf weeds, but not, like grass and such.
Seems we've been running down the wrong track on this, and colds, for decades. Why can't we develop a "coldicide" and a "fluicide" specifically poisonous to something in those viruses?
As Charby seems to have touched on.
Terry, 230RN
If you apply a high enough rate of broadleaf herbicide on grasses, you will kill the grasses. It's not that they are immune to the herbicide, just applied at a rate that is not lethal to the grasses but is to the broadleaves.
Viruses don't have cellular respiration like plants, animals and bacteria do. So it would be hard to find a mode of action to stop a virus in a living cell. Outside of a body, it normally fairly easy to kill most viruses with contact chemicals, like bleach. Or even using UV light.
Here is a Cliff notes read for you.
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/biology/biology/prokaryotes-and-viruses/viruses
You need some sort of chemical that can stop reproduction of viruses and not effect the reproduction of the healthy cells.
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Off the top of my head, with no research:
Virus' are very simple creatures. There is still some debate as to whether they count as alive. They are basically just strands of DNA or RNA that, when they get in an appropriate type of cell, cause themselves to be replicated.
We already have a variety of compounds that can interact with DNA (or RNA) and cause it to not work right with cell structures and replicate poorly. Many carcinogens work that way. I suspect that the effects of taking those compounds are worse then the flu shot.
* Side note: A little research shows that there ARE indeed some virucides (as differentiated from antivirals) that destroy/deactivate virus' without killing mammals. There are even some broad spectrum ones. Lysol is one. It seems like some research in broad spectrum virucides is ongoing. This link talks about one of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scytovirin
ETA: Also this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanovirin-N Tobacco could save us all!!
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IIRC, they consist of a protein coat and then RNA (or was it DNA) inside. It latches onto a cell inject the RNA (or was is DNA) which hijacks that cell and turns it into a replication factory.
So in order to destroy the virii you'd have to destroy the protein coat (which would also kill regular cells) Or figure out a way to damage the RNA (or was it DNA) of the Virii, which would also damage the RNA (or was it DNA) of regular cells. Which is why vaccination is so important. You're body then can produce the anti-bodies to defeat a larger infection.
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Lest we forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic)
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Lest we forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic)
Still a matter of when, could be this year, could be 10 years from now.
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IIRC, they consist of a protein coat and then RNA (or was it DNA) inside. It latches onto a cell inject the RNA (or was is DNA) which hijacks that cell and turns it into a replication factory.
So in order to destroy the virii you'd have to destroy the protein coat (which would also kill regular cells) Or figure out a way to damage the RNA (or was it DNA) of the Virii, which would also damage the RNA (or was it DNA) of regular cells. Which is why vaccination is so important. You're body then can produce the anti-bodies to defeat a larger infection.
In a lot of cases what happens is that the antibody latches onto the viral particle and marks it as 'too be eaten' by the immune system's killer cells.
The really neat ones also interfere with the viral particle being able to attach and inject its payload, such that a viral particle with a antibody on it is non-infectious. And waiting to be eaten.
RNA viruses are especially nasty due to reverse-transcriptase or such. The Virus will actually write itself into the cell's DNA, to be triggered some semi-random time later.
That's why HIV and Hepatitis B are so hard to get rid of.
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Lest we forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic)
(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/500x/73947837/nobody-expects-the-spanish-influenza.jpg)
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Still a matter of when, could be this year, could be 10 years from now.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition Influenza...
dammit, beat again...