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Vaccine Patch Removes Needle Pain
wog777 writes "Researchers led by Mark Prausnitz of Georgia Institute of Technology reported their research on microneedles in Sunday's edition of Nature Medicine. A microneedle contains needles so small you don't even feel them. Attached to a patch like a Band-Aid, the little needles barely penetrate the skin before they dissolve and release their vaccine."
A citizen needs some calibration? Don't worry, he wont even feel the needle shot!
Can a blood sample be taken this way?
I remember seeing an article about this idea in a popular science magazine years and years ago. Glad to see it's still around for those who hate needles.
Immunizations are certainly the number one reason why children between the ages of about 9 months and six years hate going to the doctor and will kick and scream and flail as soon as they see anybody come into the exam room with a stethoscope. Vaccine patches would be great, particularly if they made it look like a sticker (which are second only to popsicles in the ability to placate an irritated youngster). Now if they'd only figure out a way to make looking in the ears and mouth easier, we'd be set!
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
It is often said that true genius is coming up with the idea that makes everyone say "I could have thought of that".
One of the problems with transdermal patches has always been one of controlling dosage. This is because the skin is only permeable to lipids, thanks to layers of keratin on the outside and the basement membrane lying inconveniently just before you get to any blood vessels. So anything that you needed to give your patient via the skin had to be fat-soluble, or it just wouldn't work. And then you have the problems of concentration gradients, skin thickness, how long you leave the patch on, and how "greasy" that person's natural skin is anyway. That makes for a lot of variables in delivery. Which means you can never be exactly sure of the dose.
By piercing through the skin's outer layers into the dermis with a "microneedle", suddenly you've eliminated a few things: 1) You can deliver hydrophyllic substances (like certain viruses or their components, for example) and 2) you can control dosage much much more accurately because you can be sure that what you're delivering is going to make it to the bloodstream versus lying around in the epidermis and or never getting off the patch in the first place.
I foresee that this technology will soon be used for much more than pediatric vaccine delivery and the creators will become very rich indeed. This doctor thinks it's a great idea. In fact the only problem is going to be for those allergic people - with previous patches all they would get is red skin, an itch, and maybe a localized rash. Now they risk a full blown type I allergic reaction.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
We already have hyposprays. They're called jet injectors. They actually predate star trek (they were invented in 1960) and have been used for decades for vaccinations, particularly polio vaccinations in Africa. A diabetic friend of mine also uses one for his insulin.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Let the kids suck it up. I did. It builds character.
Now get off my lawn.
So now when the kids misbehave I won't be able to threaten them with shots from the doctor. Takes the fun right out of parenting...
Better known as 318230.
Far easier to get mercury and mind control chips into your skin if you can't see the syringe. At least before you could ask to examine your vaccine with a x-ing scope of some kind, now it's HIDDEN in the bandage. HIDDEN.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
odd how this story about good ole american know-how resembles this press release from an australian university from April?
http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=21034
In my 22 years i've been i the hospital as much as i have been at home. Docs have tried just about every medical grade adhesive for the different bandages i've needed. So far nothing works for more than an hour before some nasty skin irritation. Even OTC bandages need to come off fairly quickly. I've learned to deal with even the biggest of needles though, so its not an issue anymore. For those who are candidates for this patch some of the nastiest shots(MMR and Gardasil) can be administered pain-free. However, i wonder how wide of scope these can cover. The article(yes, i RTFA) does not mention whether this can me used to inject medications that are typically injected into muscle areas. In any case, this looks promising, but i dunno how far they will get. We will find out "in 5 years"
I can see it now, the horror story of the future. A killer challenges you to a co-op game of Starcraft 3 and after you pwn some nubs, you high five!
"Wait, what is this, why did you have a band aid in your hand?" *passes out*
"The pwning has just begun, Billy Lumpkins. I'll teach you to troll the warlock forum."
The needles are conical, about 200m diameter by 650m long, with 10m radius of curvature at the tip. They are made from a biocompatible polymer, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and mostly dissolve after about five minutes (they are highly water-soluble). The manufacturing process can be done at 23C (using a mold), avoiding damage to sensitive biological molecules. Each patch held 3 g of vaccine.
For comparison purposes, human hair ranges in diameter from 20-200m.
Here's the article, with some low-res pictures even for non-subscribers.
It reminds me more of the fast-acting transdermal patches that Babylon 5 was fond of.
Oh, and: SPOILER ALERT. Sorta.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
My understanding is that(at least in tropical medicine and military applications) the point isn't really that they are less painful than needles(and, even if they are, having some guy hold a big nasty-looking device up to your arm and make a pneumatic wh-thunk sound isn't calculated to give kiddo sweet dreams) its that they are much faster and more efficient and cheap.
Because there is no needle(which is either an expensive FRU or a temptation to ill-equipped medical staff in the ass-end of nowhere to wash out and re-use until it is blunt), you can skip all the fancy western hospital one-time-use assemblies that would be impractical in the field; but avoid the cross-contamination that occurs if you share needles. Depending on the design, there might be a simple pneumatic tip that gets replaced each use; but it makes lining up an entire village somewhere and pumping them full of vaccine much more logistically feasible.
There's nothing a double hit, if you know what I mean.
You mean you accidentally the decaf?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Now people will be able to inject others with toxins and it will be impossible to detect it.
What you have is a stealth needle, this idea in my opinion is incredibly dangerous, but I guess it will be good for mercenaries because it will reduce the costs.
There is a reason why we can feel needles.