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Oxford University Tests Universal Flu Vaccine
dbune writes "A universal flu vaccine has been tested by scientists at Oxford University. '... the vaccine targets proteins inside the flu virus that are common across all strains, instead of those that sit on the virus's external coat, which are liable to mutate. If used widely a universal flu vaccine could prevent pandemics, such as the swine flu outbreaks of recent years, and end the need for a seasonal flu jab.'"
counting toothpicks and knowing when to double down.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
The worldwide death toll from the flu and its complications is in the hundreds of thousands. This is potentially more than just preventing an occasional annoying illness. It's more on the order of preventing all fatalities from traffic accidents.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Does it ever! Not only does it cause autism, it will cause all children under 16 years of age to mutate into cannibalistic 30-feet-tall ivory-skinned humanoids with six fingers and large feathery wings! Buy a batch now - our special Rapture(TM) offering lasts only until the breaking of the Seventh Seal or the destruction of our facilities and board members by fire and brimstone, whichever comes first!
Emotions! In your brain!
Isn't this how most modern zombie movies start?
Can you guess where I'm going with this? ..... Small.... sample.... size....
Here's a hint: Yesterday, the NFC won the coin toss for the super bowl. That makes 14 years in a row that the NFC has won the coin toss. Does that prove that the coin toss is not random?
Free unix account: freeshell.org
Will one shot be sufficient to turn me completely autistic? Or do I need booster shots? I'd better consult the best source possible: Jenny McCarthy. I hear she's, like, awesome with autism.
"We did get an indication that the vaccine was protecting people, not only from the numbers of people who got flu but also from looking at their T-cells before we gave them flu. The people we vaccinated had T-cells that were more activated. The people we hadn't vaccinated had T-cells as well but they were in a resting state so they would probably have taken longer to do anything. The volunteers we vaccinated had T-cells that were activated, primed and ready to kill. There were more T-cells in people we vaccinated and they were more activated."
This test appears to be about safety and confirming some sort of t-cell response, not effectiveness.
Well, I am by no means an expert on this stuff, but I think the idea is to make what's called a protein subunit vaccine. They take a key protein from the disease and implant it in some other virus. Your body attacks that virus and develops an immune response to the targeted protein. It's being used in experimental vaccines for AIDS and, apparently, Influenza. However, I don't know if there are any cases of it being done successfully on a large scale.
If it works out, it would be fantastic - effective vaccination for two of the worlds biggest killers, which could potentially save millions of lives per year. However, first they need to get it working, and then they need to find a way to make it cheap enough to use in the third world, since that's where most of the deaths occur. It might help that a universal flu vaccine would be very popular in the first world, and could provide them with the money to ramp production.
Oddly enough, reducing mortality rates goes a long ways towards lowering population growth. People who expect their children to survive will have fewer of them and invest more resources into the ones they have.
The desperate hangers-on to the entirely discredited "vaccine" = "autism" theory recall another bizarre and desperate group I saw on a TV show the other day.
They were having a panel of "crop circle experts" discuss all the mysterious alien influences and methodology underlying a nearby crop circle flap. After a few hours, some people stand up at the back, and state that *they* made the crop circles. They also showed a video-tape of themselves making the crop circles. The crop circle experts claimed - in all seriousness - that the aliens FAKED the tape, and then brainwashed the people into claiming they were responsible.
We all know that the drug manufacturers wont produce this vaccine. Currently they have a constant revenue stream with a new vaccine needed seasonly. Greed is better than a cure. It's a false hope.
Why does this nonsense always get a mod-up?
Look around you.
See anyone dying of Smallpox? Measles? Polio? Diphtheria? Tetanus? Has your daughter received the HPV - Cervical Cancer vaccine?
There is big money to made in treating cancer.
Why do you suppose that this vaccine wasn't suppressed?
The answer is that the cure brings with it a new level of understanding. It exposes opportunites that had never before been seiously considered.
When most men and women were in failing health along about age 45 or so, it didn't make much sense to put real money into studying arthritis, cancer, glaucoma, senile dementias, and so on.
I was going to post that. Another thing which is really great for decreasing population growth is ensuring that parents don't have to be supported by their children in old age. That reduces the pressure to produce many children and as a result parents tend to have fewer children or none at all of their own choosing.
The common cold isn't caused by one virus, there's many different ones which are responsible. So in other words you could probably create an immunization to cover most of it, but you'd be stuck developing a vaccine like this for each of them ones.
"The seasonal flu is not a danger in countries with basic hygiene and sufficient access to medical facilities."
Since some years over 49000 people died of the flu in the US (_with_ umpteen millions vaccinated), does that mean it's not a country with basic hygiene and sufficient access to medical facilities?