More COVID-19 News: Israeli Scientists -- vaccine soon; distribution about 3 months away

[Zoidberg]

Israeli scientists: 'In a few weeks, we will have coronavirus vaccine'

Israeli scientists are on the cusp of developing the first vaccine against the novel coronavirus, according to Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis. If all goes as planned, the vaccine could be ready within a few weeks and available in 90 days, according to a release. wrote:

Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-vac...te-1489694

Jerusalem Press: https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Isr...ine-619101

90 days seems like too long but I can only begin to imagine the logistics of going worldwide with something like this.

[mrbigstuff]

I heard that the quickest regular vaccinations would be available is closer to 18 months, if they prove effective

[Filliam H. Muffman]

There are several labs working on vaccines. Any presumed "cure" needs to go through long term safety testing. That's why it usually takes 9 to 18 months for wide distribution. Occasionally early releases of vaccines have killed people or made it more likely to get infected.

I hope the US is working on building regional supplies of plasma from patients that have recovered from COVID-19 and don't have other diseases to spread. That is usually the first early treatment available.

[freeradical]

If a new experimental vaccine becomes available, it will probably only be given to health care workers who are likely to come into contact with infected patients.

[Sarcany]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote: Occasionally early releases of vaccines have killed people or made it more likely to get infected...

The first few Coronavirus vaccines (multiple teams working on these, notably one in China that promised a vaccine by mid-February) are likely to be of a new class, RNA vaccines.

The drug industry loves this class of vaccines. If you google it, you'll find lots of papers talking about the future of such vaccines. Very quick to design and easy to produce in great quantities.

This is the type you're going to hear about as "ready in weeks" because it can be engineered rapidly and governments dealing with panicky populations are going to waive regulations and testing and buy billions of dollars of anything that shows promise.

But there's no successful RNA vaccine.

It's new tech.

There's evidence that RNA vaccines may help with the course of a disease. But there's also evidence that the immune response from the vaccines they've trialed doesn't last beyond a few weeks or months.

There are problems with storage and transportation because they degrade rapidly if not chilled at precise temperatures. And there are problems with delivery-methods. These vaccines tend to be rejected by human cells, but in order to work they have to get into our cells to churn out proteins to stimulate the immune system, so they use nanoparticle delivery methods of a type which are usually held back for cancer chemo trials. The nanoparticles have their own problems with toxicology, weakening/crossing the blood-brain barrier, effects on liver and kidney function, etc.

Mosquirix is a mRNA vaccine against malaria. The WHO has been accused of using the populations of Malawi, Ghana, and Kenya for what amounts to a large-scale drug trial without informed consent. While the manufacturer promised long-term protection, there's evidence that the immune response from this vaccine fades in months. In the first few months of use it has been linked to higher rates of cerebral malaria (when parasite-infected blood cells block small blood vessels to the brain), and a two-fold risk of "all-cause mortality" in girls. Five other RNA drugs have been tested with similar negative outcomes.

I am big on vaccination. But not this way. You don't rush something like this out the door. It seems to me that pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of the opportunity to enrich themselves selling miracle cures and snake oil.



(See my new post, below. Sept, 2020.)

[d4]

I guess any potential side-effects with this rushed to distribution vaccine is better than a 2% chance of death?

[Sarcany]

d4 wrote:
I guess any potential side-effects with this rushed to distribution vaccine is better than a 2% chance of death?

TLDR?

We've had one and only one large scale trial of this class of vaccine and it's killing kids.

It's modifying the DNA in cells in ways that may have unpredictable results in short and long-term and has to be accompanied by other agents that are known to cause organ damage and alter the blood-brain barrier.

It's mind-bogglingly irresponsible to rush something like this to market.

[Yoyodyne ArtWorks]

Sarcany wrote:
It's mind-bogglingly irresponsible to rush something like this to market.

Great, so it’s a sure bet Trump will push it.

[d4]

Sarcany wrote:
[quote=d4]
I guess any potential side-effects with this rushed to distribution vaccine is better than a 2% chance of death?

TLDR?
Who?

[Sarcany]

Props to PeterB for drawing my attention back to this thread.

I don't recall where I found the info suggesting that Mosquirix was an RNA vaccine. I was wrong.

It's a recombinant vaccine.

A recombinant vaccine is engineered from two or more sources. There are at least 3 genetic contributors to the vaccine. It's not an RNA/DNA vaccine, but DNA/RNA vaccine techniques are used to produce it where they trick yeast cells into making the proteins that they want and I suspect that's where the confusion arose from.

I was also swayed by a number of passionate articles against the WHO's using this vaccine on impoverished kids before it had been tested under proper clinical trials.

The principal stands that rushing untested vaccines to the public can be deadly.

The principle that rushing RNA vaccines to market without proper clinical trials can be deadly is as yet untested.