Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Move Closer To a Universal Flu Vaccine
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Vaccines for most diseases typically work for years or decades but with the flu, next fall it will be time to get another dose. Now Carl Zimmer writes that a flurry of recent studies on the virus has brought some hope for a change as flu experts foresee a time when seasonal flu shots are a thing of the past, replaced by long-lasting vaccines. 'That's the goal: two shots when you're young, and then boosters later in life' says Dr. Gary Nabel, predicting that scientists would reach that goal before long: 'in our lifetime, for sure, unless you're 90 years old.' Today's flu vaccines protect people from the virus by letting them make antibodies in advance but a traditional flu vaccine can protect against only flu viruses with a matching hemagglutinin protein. If a virus evolves a different shape, the antibodies cannot latch on, and it escapes destruction. Scientists have long wondered whether they could escape this evolutionary cycle with a universal flu vaccine that would to attack a part of the virus that changes little from year to year so now researchers are focusing on target antigens which are highly conserved between different influenza A virus subtypes. 'Universal vaccination with universal vaccines would put an end to the threat of global disaster that pandemic influenza can cause,' says Dr. Sara Gilbert."
Because I'm currently sneezing my brains out...
So could we kill off all the 'typical' flu viruses allowing the evolution of something more aggressive?
I will not be on bleeding edge of this. The recent track record of the drug and vaccine approval process has been pretty sorry, let some other guinea pigs live with it a few years first.
No good deed goes unpunished.
So if a one season shot makes your shoulder sore for four or five days, this will....?
--- Mercutio was right.
(From TFA, emphasis mine)
"Several of these have now been taken into clinical development, and this review discusses the progress that has been made, as well as considering the requirements for licensing these new vaccines and how they might be used in the future."
It just wouldn't be a slashdot story if 'intellectual property' didn't pop up somewhere, now would it?
Consider the feedback loop. In response to our actions, the flu itself will change.
We're already seeing how microbes are developing resistance to antibiotics, and how germs acquired during healthcare are more virulent than those out there in the wild.
Do we want to incentivize the flu to mutate into something more vicious and fast-acting?
Sometimes, mother nature represents a balance between extremes. Somewhere between no-flu and a flu that resembles airborne superfast Ebola is the current balance.
I am not saying we should not explore this technology, but with our current record, we should move cautiously.
Yep, look at Polio. Years later and it's killing us all once again.
My understanding is that the Common Cold is based on six virus families, so a similar approach for each family could create a set of vaccines to eliminate colds.
What "sorry" track record? Last I checked we've been doing quite well with vaccines. I managed to get into a trial for one of the more recent ones, Chickenpox, and am certainly glad I did. Why are you so worried?
Nature indeed will find a way.... All you will wind up with is a decade or so with no flu... then suddenly a superbug FAR more lethal and dangerous than the one you eradicated.
I never catch the flu because I go out of my way to avoid contact with all humans. No need for a fancy vaccine and best of all, free of charge.
A vaccine is something you take prior to getting sick.
More specifically, a vaccine makes the disease a much less serious issue, as it enables the body's immune system to squish it very rapidly and with few ill effects. That is, it changes the nature of the disease as a process occurring in the body (and to our benefit); it's immune system hacking really.
Given that we're not the primary hosts for influenza, a general vaccine (if possible) will be highly beneficial. Well, provided it's restricted to people and not also used to try to partially stamp it out in the natural reservoir; that would be bad because it would put strong selection pressure on the virus to evolve into something that the vaccine wouldn't help with.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Yeah: Polio, Smallpox, Scarlet Fever, Malaria, Plague, Anthrax; all of those have historically been defeated by "exercise and vitamins and good food". That's why hardly anyone dies from them anymore. No, wait, sorry, my bad. It's because of vaccines, antibiotics, and sanitation. I always get those mixed up too.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Having said that I was laid out for two days solid by this year's flu vaccine and really would like to see a better one.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
exercise and vitamins and good food.
Oh good, advice from a Slashdot armchair physician.
Unfortunately, what you don't know can quite literally kill you: the influenza virus can do more damage to young healthy people than the infirm, and some strains infect over 30% of the population, irrespective vitamin pills or yoga classes.
Read up on the 1918 flu pandemic and then cytokine storms to gain a glimmer of understanding into why research into a flu vaccine is more important than almost any public safety measure you can think of. Short of nuclear war, there's not a lot of things that are likely to wipe out a significant fraction of the human race, but the flu is one of them. We're practically overdue for a strain deadly enough to kill more people in a year than WWI and WWII combined.
I'd like to see you try to keep your attitude towards healthy living as the best defense against a viral plague when the government starts hauling away the bodies of your neighbors by the truckload.
This just in! Nature moves closer to a flu immune to the "universal" vaccine.
End of line..
At the time I was playing field games all year, could easily run five miles, and was getting a very good diet. I was in bed for 10 days with the 76 flu. I later learned that with many viruses the exact opposite of what you claim is the truth - plenty of exercise results in muscle cell damage which makes it easier for the virus to enter them, so athletic people can suffer worse than sedentary people. Poliomyelitis is another one that can do this.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Not necessarily: We've completely killed smallpox.
I am officially gone from
Vaccination has been around since the 19th century and smallpox has returned as a major killer...oh not it hasn't. In fact there were discussions some years ago about whether it was right to keep ANY smallpox virus at all in the world for research. (In case the North Koreans or the North Americans were developing a resistant strain).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Research been showing more problems than prevention from vaccines
I'm going to use my annecdotal dataset of one. Let's see, people I know who've had vaccines. Hmm... all of them. Number of those people who have had negative side-effects.... none whatsoever. So, if there are more problems than prevention from vaccines, I'm not seeing it in my little slice of the world.
In fact, given that vaccination rates run at something from 70-90% in industrialised countries and we aren't seeing 70-90% of people suffering more than they might expect from polio, measles, influenza, etc. I'd say that claiming that vaccines do more harm than good is complete bullshit.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
The DOD's anthrax vaccine scandal comes to mind. Funny how the owner of Biport, a big Clinton donor, was able to get his plant reopened after the FDA closed it.
Yep, look at Polio. Years later and it's killing us all once again.
You do understand that this is because of the recent anti-vaccine movement, where parents are not vaccinating their children, because of irrational fears that it may cause autism, right?
Yes a tiny number of people have died of vaccines. Have you any idea of how many would have died without them?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The parts that doesn't change doesn't change because they don't undergo any evolutionary pressure - once you are through with illness, you have antibodies which successfully prevent its return, for the season, all that without aiming at those "unchanging" parts of virus. Once we start targeting them, they too will start changing.
Why is it that people have such trouble understanding evolution?
Evolutionary pressure does not increase mutation rate. It prevents organisms which are unfit against said pressure from reproducing and spreading. So, if mutations in those parts that are most unchanged have happened, those viruses will reproduce more than the ones targeted by the vaccine. However, mutation rates of those parts do not increase. In addition, since those hypothetical viruses do not compose the majority of the viruses now, we can assume they are less fit in an environment without the vaccine, and that our bodies make short work of them already.
A universal cure for all virii, both known and unknown could be acheived
by changing the genetic code used by human (host) cells. This would
cause an invading virus to be mis-replicated and therefore harmless to
the remaining, uninvaded cells.
There is a species of bacteria which partially implements this tactic for
the purpose of surviving bacteriophages (a bacteria-attacking virus).
Such a change would ideally done temporarily just in case there are
side effects.
How can a vaccine hurt you?
Is that you Jenny McCarthy?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Correlation does not imply causation. Your co-worker's paralysis could could have been caused by a number of factors and probably was not thoroughly explored. The curezone article that was shown is a mis-mash of peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed "articles" from main-stream, generally chemophobic press and even some of the books.
Even the recent thermisol flap was debunked by three research agencies in the US: CDC, FDA with the results being reviewed by three independent agencies (NAS-Institute of Medicine, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Still after this tremendous amount of research, we still have TV stars warning us about the evil of vaccines and those containing thermisol in particular. As people hear the tripe without investigating, the begin to believe then they stop immunizing their children, and as such we have seen a resurgance of childhood diseases such as whooping cough.
Generally speaking, flu vaccines won't "prevent' the flu as much as it helps reduce duration and severity of the sympotons, as the virus mutates pretty rapidly. One has to look at the risk/benefit of vaccination, not only for themselves but for society as a whole.
Exercise, vitamins and good food are essential for day-to-day health. If you have enough of those in your life, your chance of keeling over due to a heart attack will drop. However, this doesn't protect you against a viral attack. That's something that this stuff won't do a single thing against. Maybe your healthy body will weather the viral infection slightly better than someone who only sits on the couch eating junk food, but not by much. In fact, someone who sits on the couch eating junk food, but who got the flu vaccine, will tend to be better off when faced with the flu than a healthy eater/exerciser who doesn't get the vaccine.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
"..If a virus evolves a different shape, the antibodies cannot latch on, and it escapes destruction. Scientists have long wondered whether they could escape this evolutionary cycle with a universal flu vaccine that would to attack a part of the virus that changes little from year to year.."
The medics should talk to Dr Alan Solomon, who used to run the successful computer Anti-Virus company "Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit".
He was the one who, when polymorphic viruses came out in the early 1990s, developed the approach for detecting them that all AV companies use today. IIRC, he got a Queen's Award for Technology for this invention.
At the time, many AV companies used to recognise viruses by matching simple bit strings which occurred in the virus code - much the same as detecting the proteins on the surface of a biological virus. Virus writers produced code such as the 'Mutation Engine', which put random 'NOPs' in the code and altered the call sequences, so that every instance of a virus in a computer was a different bit string. Then they started doing whole virus encryption with different keys on each infection. At a stroke, the detection process was subverted.
Alan realised that the virus was 'the same' at some level - not at the bit level, but in terms of its code behaviour. The actual bits would be different for each virus, but a copy of, say, Tequila, would still load two registers, compare and jump at a similar point (that's simplistic, but you get the idea...). So he developed a process for examining a virus, not at the bit level, but in terms of code behaviour. And when he finally sold his company he became a rich man.
I'm sure the same techniques will function in biological viruses - both from the virus attack point of view and the medical defenders. We understand the technique in computers - I hope the medics are sufficiently widely read to be able to apply the work Alan did 25 years ago in a different discipline.....
Silly boy. You can not patent exercise, vitamins and good food.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So not only is it effective against the asian and bird flu's, it also works against Martian, Klingon and Vulcan types.
(And how about The Andromeda Strain ?)
No we haven't:
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/obomsawin2.html
Make sure you actually do the "keep away from people" bit. Then hopefully it'll just be you and your family dieing from preventable diseases and not the rest of us.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
How come they haven't taken aim at the Common Cold?
Or is it that the pharmaceutical companies are making all too much profit from the less-than-threatening cold virus?
Maybe I'm just too jaded.
http://pastebin.com/YBMHMnX7
I must be missing something where malaria has been defeated. Perhaps you might like to inform the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation they are wasting their money.
However in general you are right.
Should we be concerned about eliminating pathogens that we have co-evolved with and that help build our immune systems (for those of us that aren't killed by them)? Is there an unintended consequence building up here?
Or in other words - what could possibly go wrong?
Everything Dr. Hadwen said has been thouroughly debunked, many times over. If you've deluded yourself enough to think otherwise I know you won't read these, but I'll leave the links here just in case:
https://draust.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/who-needs-facts-these-vaccine-conspiracy-pieces-write-themselves%E2%80%A6/
http://skepticalsurfer.blogspot.com/2007/09/terminology-aggressive-vs-conservative.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vaccine_controversies/Archive_2
http://reasonablehank.com/2012/02/06/judy-judy-judy-are-you-attempting-to-censor-others-right-to-free-speech/
Is 1563649 a prime number?
We have already beaten Chicken Pox or have we.... In recent years people and even children are coming down with Shingles, a fait rarely heard of in early years.
That's a crock of shit, sir. Every time you vaccinate, you challenge the immune system, and you bring it to a state of readiness for the next attack. It's only people whose immune systems are naive to the invader that actually come down with the disease. That's the whole fucking point of vaccination!
I don't care if your daughter dies. I don't care if her 90-year-old grandparents die. I do care if I come down with a case of whooping cough from a carrier like her.
Fortunately, I won't have to worry about that for another 10 years, because a lot of people have wrongly thought that pertussis was one of those diseases of the 60s/70s that had been wiped out by vaccination, and forgot that there was a booster shot available. Some antivax fucktard cow orker of mine infected three of us and knocked my team's productivity down for a month.
.... a group of rabid, radical evangelicals are planning a boycott because if their children have a greater chance to live, they have a greater chance to have SEX!!!!!
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
All the Conspirator theories and Dick Cheney/Halliburton/Asbestos Conspiracies....
That makes no sense. A vaccination only makes someone's immune system work harder, earlier. It is just like "playing in the dirt", only with particularly useful dirt.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Invention describes an innovative method of improving general physical health through combination of repetitive physical exertion, nutritional supplementation, and dietary selection.
--- Mercutio was right.
Vitamins don't sdo anything for you unless you are deficient. Even then, a lot of pills don't work well.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...and queue the opening credit sequence, the soundtrack, and the scenes of the population being mass innoculated before the "rage virus" mutation overtakes New York.
I'm a satanic clam.
Yes we have. That was a horrible article which can only be summed up as 'A lie'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's treatable now. People rarely die of it if they can get treatment. It was mostly fatal 100 years ago. It doesn't fit as well as some of the others, but Malaria is much less scary than it once was, even if it isn't "defeated".
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Hi. You clearly have no idea how vaccines work beyond what you've read in Watchtower, and I hope your daughter is taken into the care of people who aren't microcephalic zealots.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Of course the one who only sits on the couch is already less likely to get the flu than the one who's constantly out exercising with other people. :-)
Suck it geezers!
Excellent point. Thanks for making it.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Your body can make antibodies, but not as fast (because it first has to figure out which antibodies it must make). Basically a vaccination is teaching your immune system about how to fight that specific virus. When you've been vaccinated, the body can immediately start its attack.
Actually it's not unlike the virus signatures of computer AV software, except that AV software isn't able to update its virus signatures all by itself (that's because the strategy to attack anything it doesn't recognize would not work well for computers; actually, sometimes it doesn't work too well in humans either, as with autoimmune diseases or transplants).
Sure, when I was a kid, I'd get it once a year usually, for a day. Never longer. Haven't had it in like 20 years. Not sure what that means, but I do know it means I don't need to get vaccinated for it. Which works, because corporations like to get rid of old stock, which is never good for the flu that is currently going around. And they'll charge you also. boom! you just paid for last years flu vaccine.
Got to love capitalism.
Be seeing you...
This vaccine must be stopped.... immunity to flu will just lead to more people socializing without fear of getting sick, and socializing leads to sex!
Won't someone think of the children? If flu was not keeping those diseased little creatures in check they would be fornicating like bunnies!
A few years- maybe even a couple decades of reduced flu.
Then new versions of the flu which change these sections hit with a vengence.
Hopefully we can rapidly prototype and produce vaccines by then.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Cheap ass companies use "immune system accelerants" in the vaccines to stretch their supplies of dead virii used in vaccines these can cause some people's immune systems to attack their own body.
Just like Illegal drugs, It isn't the vaccine itself that is bad, but the stuff they "cut it with".
You knew by posting this here you were going to get slammed, right? When it comes to vaccines, the scientific minded community does not allow any room for criticism, doubt or deviation from their position that all vaccines are a godsend and beyond reproach. Doubts and skepticism are at the core of the scientific movement-- except when it comes to this issue. Instead you're just called a conspiracy theorist and a nut.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
The last I heard, this particular universal vaccine does not work very well when injected. The key is to introduce the antigen(s) below the tongue:
The normal flu vaccines are also available as a nasal aerosol.
Did people appropriately tear her a new asshole for doing something as stupid as that?
flu is in general one of the larger killers in the WORLD. Now, if you take out one of the top killers, what will happen? EVERYBODY lives longer. we are looking at a population explosion. a big one. unless we have food/water issues in better shape, we could be trading one killer (disease) for another (war).
It would be nice to see ppl like gates quit focusing on health issues and focus instead on creating new tech such as a thorium nuke generator. Likewise, high speed train that can replace many roads would be smart. why? Because it would help the world over.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Whatever.... as he is now going to be receiving compensation from our government for the rest of his life. He doesn't care what you as a taxpayer thinks.... shrug...
Especially since all valid studies show no evidence to believe there is any reason to avoid vaccines.
Not to mention that the Dr who wrote about thermisol was paid a few million by a group of people who had money to be made by negative publicity against thermisol. Also, he didn't actually find a link, he merely suggested that their could be one and had absolutely no data to even suggest it.
This is why they should have nothing to do with it. It should be solely the job of public sector professionals (being PUBLIC HEALTH and all), working on nothing else - say boner pills - but vaccine production and research; all well-funded and isolated from horseshit from any part of the political spectrum.
Some things are far more important that filthy lucre, air-headed 'stars', and pissing contests: preventing pandemics should be chief among them, FFS.
How does people being sick create a revenue stream for the government?
sterilize people?
A co-worker suffered paralysis on his left side and was in the hospital for near over a month.? http://curezone.com/art/read.asp?ID=12&db=12&C0=735
I know what you mean! I had a friend who was in a paralyzing car accident so now I don't ride in cars anymore. Also, I heard about a WHOLE FAMILY who burned to death in their home so now I won't go inside houses anymore. Can't catch me suckers!
The plural of 'anectode' isn't 'data' you fucking brainless moron. Now why don't you let your irrational fear of computer viruses keep you off the internet and stop polluting the world with broadcasts of your stupidity.
You are correct about the Poster you responded to. However, there is a reason the last flu pandemic with major world health implications was in 1918. That is because that was the last flu pandemic before modern medicine (which I date from the development of sulfa drugs, although some might move it to the mass production of penicillin). Many of those who died from the 1918 flu pandemic actually died from opportunistic infections that attacked them while they were in a weakened state from the flu infection, not from the flu itself. Today most of those opportunistic infections are treatable. It is improbable that we will have a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic unless we have a collapse of industrial society.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Ah, good thing that all of you were properly vaccinated, so you're safe right? Oh wait.
Yeah... exercise is the best thing to do when you've got a 102F fever. That'll fix you right up.
There is already a universal virus killer in development. And it doesn't target the virus. Instead it targets the cell hosting the virus. When a cell is virus infected it makes a specific protein, a "help I'm infected" RNA flag.
DRACO is two proteins bound together. When it sees the "help I'm infected" RNA, it breaks in two. Half of DRACO binds to it. The other half is a protein messenger that triggers apoptosis - cell death.
The end result is that any cell that has a virus in it commits suicide before the virus can use the cell to reproduce.
Here is a quick story on DRACO.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I would love if a virologist could chime in: Why don't our bodies immune systems' already develop the ability to "target antigens which are highly conserved between different influenza A "?
The average human is exposed to many many type of influenza in their lifetimes, how does this vaccine work to prime it in a way that wouldn't normally happen during the course of a regular influenza infection? Why will this specific vaccine technique potentially work to provide broad immunity, but exposure to wild type influenza does not?
there's a fundamental problem with all these vaccines, which is summed up flippantly as "what doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger"... by vaccinating children against various disease - by giving their immune systems an "easy ride" - their immune systems simply do not develop to the same extent that a child would if they had the actual disease and had to fight for their life.
Yeah, tell that to my friend Mike, who has a twisted arm and hand and a twisted leg because he had polio fifty years ago. Guess what? Neitze was a fucking moron; ask Steve Reeves if falling off that horse made him stronger. Ask my wheelchair-bound cousin if having his neck broken at age 16 made him stronger.
Moron.
the very first time we fight for our lives - for our right to live - is when we are born. we *literally* fight for breath, when being sqeezed out of our mums.
Well, my oldest did, because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and her lungs were filled with fluid. She's now learning-disabled. A hundred years ago she would have died.
My youngest came out screaming in rage. I don't think you've ever seen a child being born.
i would sit by my daughter's bed-side, nursing her patiently back to health, loving her and being happy with and for her.
Being happy with her when she's seriously ill? Let me tell you something, boy (I'm sure you're under 16), NOBODY'S happy when their child is ill.
and no, we have *NOT* vaccinated our daughter.
That's because you don't have one. If in fact you're an adult with schitzoaffective disorder rather than a stupid teenager, I hope the child protective services take her from you and possibly save her life. How you're treating your (I still believe nonexistant) daughter is monstrous.
the reports on the detrimental effects and case studies on the long-term health of children are out there; they're just not widely published
So where did you find out about these "secret studies"? Got a citation? Heh, thought not.
in the 1960s there was a "foot & mouth" outbreak in the UK. nobody slaughtered any cows.
That's because hoof and mouth doesn't affect humans except in very rare circumstances. Note than when bovine ensephalitis hit Europe, they killed hlaf the cows after finding that it did indeed affect humans who ate the meat.
with the masses having their immune systems weakened *because* of the mass-vaccinations
Where in the HELL did you get the retarded idea that vaccinations weaken the immune system? And is the shift key broken on your keyboard, son? Yes, refusal to type like an adult is a very good indicator that you're a dumbass youngster trying to be hip.
Pay a little more attention in school. When you do have a real kid, rather than the schitzophrenic hallucination you seem to be having, I hope you've been taking your meds.
Free Martian Whores!
Ah, good thing that all of you were properly vaccinated, so you're safe right? Oh wait.
You may want to look up Herd Immunity
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
Wrong. There are plenty of published and peer reviewed studies that do show injury, such as adjuvant induced autoimmune diseases. There are also issues of ineffectiveness, bad batches, etc. and things like serotype replacement where bugs mutate into something even worse. We know of several events in history where vaccines HAVE directly caused harm, such as the polio outbreak in Nigeria that was directly caused by the oral polio vaccine and the swine flu vaccine that caused GBS. It's also a widely accepted fact that for a very small portion of population, there will be significant adverse reaction. It's not universal that all vaccines are good, safe and infallible; you can't lump them all together in one basket.
Now, I'm definitely not arguing that all vaccines are ineffective either and agree the anti-vax crew do have a lot of crazy theories that are unproven or anecdotal (including some comments made by the OP). But on both sides of the vaccine debate there is a lot of misinformation. And the problem IMO is that there should be NO area of science where we're not constantly evaluating, but for some reason, this is one of the only areas where questions do not seem to be allowed. Instead of people showing why you're wrong, they yell at you for even asking questions. I've experienced this firsthand on many occasions.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
The M2 protein was targeted already in a trial vaccine. Paradoxically, most of the "test subjects" died with much worse reactions when they were actually exposed to the flu virus.
Anyone want to step forward and volunteer to try this one?
Scientists have found some people that already have antibodies targeting these conserved areas. The problem is that immunity is very very random due to the recombination mechanisms (such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%28D%29J_recombination) which are used to match a diverse set of possible antigens. The body produces a wide variety of antibodies, the production of which is either negatively reinforced (such as in the case of self-recognition) or positively reinforced (i.e. when they match some foreign antigen). An infection triggers a local cytokine reaction (inflamation) which triggers a rapid ramp up in the production of any and all antibodies by cells that happen to be in the local area. The body can produce unbelievably many different antibodies that can match any given invading virus or bacteria, so once someone is vaccinated or infected there's a sort of race condition to see which of the candidates becomes established as the winner*. The winner then becomes positively reinforced and its memory cells are circulated throughout the body, while the losers mostly just go back to being inactive. Most people just aren't lucky enough to have an antibody for one of the conserved regions win (since those are such a small fraction of all of the candidates that would work for this particular infection).
TLDR: Don't believe what you see on TV and everything is much more complicated and messy than it seems.
*Well to be fair, it is much more complicated than this with possibly slight increased partial immunity based on all matching antibodies based on the distribution of the corresponding cell lines in the body, local cytokine levels, antigen density, etc.
See Dr. Joel Fuhrman: http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cold-flu-flu-and-nutrition-dr-fuhrman-responds-to-comments.html ..."
"The idea that a person eating a nutrient-rich diet is just as likely to develop and suffer the dangerous consequences from an influenza virus as a cheese burgers and soda eating American is simply wrong. More importantly such opinions are dangerous as they may lead to tragic outcomes for those mistaking authority for knowledge. Let's review just a few articles from the scientific literature that further support this concept that nutritional.excellence can offer protection from viral attacks. I will show the reference and post some explanatory comments below each reference.
Numerous citations there.
Also, on vitamin D:
And: http://www.naturalnews.com/029760_vitamin_D_influenza.html
Counter-evidence on vitamin D though:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/02/health/vitamin-d-colds/index.html
But elsewhere it's been said by Dr. John Cannell that vitamin D has only helped with some influenza strains and also by compairson that the amount in the previous study may still have been too low:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/news-archive/2009/h1n1-flu-and-vitamin-d/
Can you provide any substantial evidence to back up your claims to the contrary? Can you even cite any good evidence the flu vaccine to date has accomplished anything significant except put more aluminum in people's bodies? By contrast: ...
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/11/does-the-vaccine-matter/307723/
"But what if everything we think we know about fighting influenza is wrong? What if flu vaccines do not protect people from dying -- particularly the elderly, who account for 90 percent of deaths from seasonal flu? And what if the expensive antiviral drugs that the government has stockpiled over the past few years also have little, if any, power to reduce the number of people who die or are hospitalized? The U.S. government -- with the support of leaders in the public-health and medical communities -- has put its faith in the power of vaccines and antiviral drugs to limit the spread and lethality of swine flu. Other plans to contain the pandemic seem anemic by comparison. Yet some top flu researchers are deeply skeptical of both flu vaccines and antivirals. Like the engineers who warned for years about the levees of New Orleans, these experts caution that our defenses may be flawed, and quite possibly useless against a truly lethal flu. And that unless we are willing to ask fundamental questions about the science behind flu vaccines and antiviral drugs, we could find ourselves, in a bad epidemic, as helpless as the citizens of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
Jackson's findings showed that outside of flu season, the baseline risk of death among people who did not get vaccinated was approximately 60 percent higher than among those who did, lending support to the hypothesis that on average, healthy people chose to get the vaccine, while the "frail elderly" didn't or couldn't. In fact, the healthy-user effect explained the entire benefit that other researchers were attributing to flu vaccine, suggesting that the vaccine itself might not reduce mortality at all. Jackson's papers "are beautiful," says Lone Simonsen, who is a professor of global health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert in influenza and vaccine epidemiology. "They are classic studies in epidemiology, they are so carefully done."
The results were
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Given the track record of the seasonal influenza vaccines I wish them luck in their pursuit. The current batch of vaccines for influenza are really poor in effectiveness to the point of "why bother".
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD005187/influenza-vaccination-for-healthcare-workers-who-work-with-the-elderly
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004879/vaccines-for-preventing-influenza-in-healthy-children
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004876/vaccines-for-preventing-seasonal-influenza-and-its-complications-in-people-aged-65-or-older
While I wish them luck I have my doubts that a fast changing virus that comes from several source animals aside from humans will be resolved this way.
One thing that really bothers me is that they only have to beat a placebo to get approved. This is true for drugs as well as vaccines. While that is a good place to start the bar should be much higher if we want to continually improve things (i.e. the Demming method). Any new medical intervention should have to be better (safer and/or more effective) than existing interventions. In this case they would have to be better than existing vaccines and other interventions like vitamin D3.
Then we will see real progress.
After modern medicine catches up with research on the role of friendly flora in the digestive tract, as that's where most of the immune system is.
Trusting Big Pharma with your future is as stupid as trusting Monsanto with the food supply. Big corporation care about the bottom line, and the best way to assure constant escalating profits is with a perpetual cycle of crisis that they can address FOR profit.
If you trust the FDA and the medical community, you haven't been paying attention the last 35 years.