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Gold and Helium Combine for Needle-Free Injections
Mr. Jaggers writes "U.K. biotech outfit, PowderMed Ltd., has developed a new method to deliver vaccine using an injector powered by concentrated helium gas. They enclose fragments of virus DNA in tiny gold particles, and use the injector to introduce particles into the body subdermally. Evidently, this has been in the works for some time, but is now ready for human clinical tests. Oh, and this is supposed to be used experimentally to target the H5N1 avian flu, which is also cool, I suppose."
Why does this sound expensive to me?
Error 2101: all your sig are belong to us
The hypospray, quickly doctor!
Reminiscent of Star Trek?
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
Should we test this on vaccines that we know the side effect for?
I mean, we know what the side effects of the polio vaccination are so maybe that's a better trial for this. It would be truly awful if we created a SuperFlu by playing around with this.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I mean "too" instead of "to".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I am an EMT but I am not allowed to perform IVs in the field. Only paramedics are allowed to do that (more training). I am licensed to perform intramuscular injections, however (think EpiPen) and I would be allowed to use one of these. The point? If there were ever a need for rapid vacinations, more people would be able to administer using this technology.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
This 'new method' is some 20+ years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_gun
I'd tell the submitter where to shove such 'new methods', but it appears that has already been done:
Chen et al. Immunity obtained by gene-gun inoculation of a rotavirus DNA vaccine to the abdominal epidermis or anorectal epithelium.Vaccine. 1999 Aug 6;17(23-24):3171-6
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
But maybe, they are using DNA that corresponds to the viral RNA.
If not couldn't it be used for diabetics? Or others that need constanst injections?
Restore the madness of youth's lechery
These guys have added "gold" and "helium" to make things sound cool, but the tech is old.
It hurts like Hell. It leaves a blister or welt, if you are lucky.
Don't flinch. If you move, the device cuts a slot. You need stiches. Then they try again. Remember, don't flinch.
Such devices are being eliminated. Back splatter (tiny droplets of blood) creates a risk of disease transmission. It's also not nice how the device tends to drive skin bacteria into you, more so than a needle would.
I remember reading about something like this in Popular Science back in late '05.
Can anyone tell me how close this is to the Hypo-sprays (sp?) from the Star Trek world? Do you still have to place is strategically, or is it a general point-and-click interface?
First comm badges. Then hypo-sprays. Warp speed, here we come!
This is just a new spin on an old trick. Geneticists have been using tiny gold pellets coated in DNA in so-called "gene guns" for a long time. They're mainly used to transform plant cells, as these cells have tough cell walls.
Using them on the human cells is a logical step, but applicability is going to be rather narrow.
The Secret of Life: Proteins fold up and bind things.
Well, the problems are only marginally different than those of using a needle, the issues of infection or injury are pretty much the same, but yes, hyposprays or pneumatic injection guns have been around for decades, and the "no needles!" is just spin, as it's used to imply that it's less painful than a needle, when the only difference is that you're just having a column of liquid pierce your skin instead of a column of metal.
[command INSERTWITTYQUIP failed: insufficient wit]
Having been needle-phobic myself, my fear was of the needle breaking off inside.
(mostly over it now, giving myself 2x a week injections)
Yes, I too went through the line and got pneumaticly injected in both arms at the same time. Navy boot camp, San Diego, 1976. Damn, If I'd stayed in my 30 would have been done in Feb. In other words, nothing new here move along...
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Ok... I don't really care about that... how long before it replaces hypodermic needles and I get to take advantage of this new tech?
How do they avoid getting air bubbles into the patient's bloodstream?
http://outcampaign.org/
It seems like decades ago when the first needle-free injecting systems
were announced. Didn't they work out?
What're the great new advantages here, not for gold producers but for
patients and/or medical establishments who fund the injections?
That never bothered me. What sets me on edge is the idea of getting needles jabbed in my eyes.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Stick a needle in a bar of soap and try to break it off. Those things are tough.
Several years ago I had a shower of sparks from a grinding machine hit me in the face and I had fine pieces of metal in my skin and eyes. Skin does not matter as the skin will force the metal out itself, but they felt that it was important to get the metal out of my eyes and the pain made me agree. I had to sit still on the wrong end of a sort of magnifying glass while they used hypodermic needles to hook the bits of metal out. As with all eye surgery it is important to remain consious. I could see each needle going into my eye and I could feel the click as they hooked each piece of metal out.
Even worse though, was a friend that was in a car wreck and they took his eyes out, again fully concious, to remove pieces of windscreen. He told me that it was very strange to be looking at his own chest like that while his eyeballs were on his cheeks.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Thanks. I never thought of that :\
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
You are so EVIL!!!
Hahahahaha, man, that made me cringe reading it. X0
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Sounds like a good vaccination to prevent humans from being Cybernised (converted into Cybermen!) since they are susceptible to Gold!
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Jeezus.
I really wanted to sleep tonight. You just fucked it up for me.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Back in 1970, I received several immunizations in the U.S. Army from needle-free guns. Only got cut once (out of 8 or 9), and it wasn't me flinching, but a suddenly-distracted tech. Before they worried about blood-spatter spreading pathogens, it was a rapid assembly-line way to perform the task: load a vial onto the gun, and "shoot" several individuals before reloading. I don't remember that version as encapuslating the viral/bacterial bits, though, and I think the pressurization agent was nitrogen, 'cause I remember jokes about "the bends". (I know "the bends" are not funny, but a bunch of 18-22 year old guys standing in lines to get "shots" will make jokes about it.)
It was in 1997.
You're right. My mother has a scar something fierce on her arm from getting one years and years ago.
Han shot first.
Still doing it in '95 in Marine Corps boot camp. Walking through the doorway and getting shot in both arms simultaneously was the last attack in a series of injections both with and without a needle.
If you had stayed in your 30, depending on your MOS you might have been effected by a stoploss. Nothing says thank you for your 30 years like "stick around a few more until we end this war".
Moving along, Aye aye sir.
... and if he hadn't posted thw windscreen part, he would have had a lot of people going.
hint for the next time - magnets work better.
I don't really see an incredible amount of relation between the two. The technology described is merely a new medium for, in this case, vaccination, not something liable to cause mutational effects in the vaccine itself. Yes, in general, it would seem to be standard procedure to test one and only one new thing at a time, but I believe that, as already mentioned, the link is made purely to boost awareness and interest.
A senior hospital physician told me some interesting facts about air bubbles in blood when I asked him what happens to the bubbles in my IV line. Apparently every time a fluid bag is changed and the IV line gets re-connected to the valve port that was put on your arm / chest, an air volume of around 1ml, and sometimes as much as 5ml or more, will enter the bloodstream as bubbles. He said air bubbles that get into the blood can stick to the walls of blood vessels, but generally he would expect the pulsating flow of blood is enough to keep a bubble moving quite freely away from the point of injection along the veins in the return flow to the heart (because vein diameter increases towards the heart), and after reaching the heart, the bubble should be able to get out into the arteries, where eventually, due to arterial branching and narrowing, it would reach a point where the diameter was too small and get stuck there for some time, blocking the flow of blood. His view was that since bubbles slowly disappear as the gases in them dissolve into the blood, a stopped bubble would probably be less serious than having a blood clot, but he did also say there has been little research on the effects of IV bubbles and the issue is still open to debate. He was generous to spare his time to talk to me, so I didn't bother him with any further questions. I wonder how the bubbles actually behave, what their effects are and what studies have been done. I would think a stopped bubble dissolves only slowly because the blood around it is not moving, so dissolved gases can only diffuse, rather than flow, back upstream into the rest of the blood. If sensitive tissue like the brain was involved, presumably any tissue that was downstream would not survive a gap of more than a few minutes in blood supply caused by a slowly dissolving stopped bubble. From what I saw when I was awake, the nurses did remove any large air bubbles in the fluid line before connecting it to the valve port.
The point of needless immunizations is for performance reasons.
They can do more because there is no need to change needles each time.
It hurts more than a needle injection though and I can't possibly see how it could be sterile since "juice" splatters back against the gun every injection.
Needles for me please.
The KGB had an injector that used precious metals and compressed gas to deliver its payload long long ago.
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
How would he be able to see if his eyes were outside his skull? I thought the eyeball required light to only enter from the front in order to work. That's why true invisibility would not work - you'd be blind.
Typos... that's just how I role.
I remember vividly standing in line and getting pneumatic injections in Navy boot camp - that was 1986 (ooooh, just dated myself).
Yellow Fever vaccination was particularly memorable as it made me really sick for just 24 hrs., then I was fine. They told us not to move as we were getting the shot as it would rip the skin and be much more painful.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
As has been pointed out by many others here already, the PowderJect device is hardly new as well.
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sigs are a total waste of bandwith, especially when the signal-to-noise ratio is lower than 1:10.
An Auxilaryman (A-gang) on a fast attack sub was THE most critical rate in the Navy in Feb. 80. They tried every trick in the book to get me to ship over. Even threatened involuntary hold, my reply was go ahead and pay the perdium and double my pay! (rules at that time) They let me go.
Fast forward to fall 90. My cousin got drafted in 61 and was then a full Colonel in the Army. Wanted to go to Desert Shield, Army says no, you were just Attache in Tokyo (intelligence officer) you know to much and will never be allowed in the Middle East, for life. Not going to take a chance on you getting picked up over there. He would have been in headquarters briefing stormin Norman, not doing John Wayne stuff. He went to Atlanta and briefed every intelligence officer that went over there. A First Lt from the 101st came in and said "hi Dad whatch ya got for me". When July 91 came around he put in for retirement after his 30. He was finaly released in Aug. 92.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.