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Researchers Investigating Self-Boosting Vaccines
An anonymous reader writes "Vaccines, contrary to opinions from the anti-science crowd, are some of the most effective tools in modern medicine. For some diseases, a single shot is all it takes for lifetime immunity. Others, though, require booster shots, to remind your immune system exactly what it should prepare to fight. Failure to get these shots threatens an individual's health, and the herd immunity concept as well. Scientists are now looking into 'self-boosting' vaccines in order to fix that problem. Some viruses are capable of remaining in the body for a person's entire lifetime. If researchers can figure out a way to safely harness these, it may be possible to add genes that would create proteins to train the immune system against not just one, but multiple other viruses (abstract). This is a difficult problem to solve; changing the way we do vaccinations will itself have consequences for herd immunity. It also hinges on finding a virus that can survive the immune system without having uncomfortable flare-ups from time to time."
use it to fight disease and work for us, not against us... where have I heard that before?
Oh that's right, just before 90% of human race died, and 6% turned into zombies that ate the rest... except for Will Smith of course.
This is Timmy's mother, Timmy won't be able to come to school today because he's feeling well and the other parents are afraid that his general well being will cause autism in the other children.
Let the "vaccine-carrying" virus be infectious, using people as "immunity carriers".
Something readily transmissible? Make sure you use something that isn't likely to mutate... I propose influenza, rhinovirus, or coronovirus. What could possibly go wrong? ;)
Anti-vaxxers are anti-science and kill kids.
People like former Dr. Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy have blood on their hands.
--
BMO
I find it interesting that this was modded flamebait. It's a valid point. Whatever your opinion on the subject, rhetorical hyperbole serves only to inflame those who already disagree to disagree more. If you disagree with the anti-vax crowd, offer reasoned counterpoints to their arguments. If you just write them off as a bunch of idiotic kooks, that will just entrench them in their position further. And who knows, do YOU have any research to support the idea that there is no benefit to, say, a more gradual vaccination schedule for infants? Has the issue been researched to a significant degree? I don't know of any studies on that specific subject (and note the difference between "I don't know" and "there are none"), so I couldn't counter the suggestion that it might be beneficial. If you disagree, back it up with the science, or you're no better than the "anti-science" crowd you claim to oppose. Blindly accepting "prevailing wisdom" without the knowledge to support it is every bit as "anti-science" as blindly accepting niche wisdom without the knowledge to support it. You look at the evidence available to you and form a conclusion, you don't just say "most scientists support idea A, so anyone who supports idea B is a fool." That helps no one and makes you look a fool.
And, for what it's worth, I was torn between posting a response to the fact this was modded flamebait, or modding it up. I chose the former.
You, and others, don't get it.
The doubt is unfounded. There is *no* science to back up the claim that thimerosol or vaccines cause autism.
When the Netherlands, and I believe Denmark banned Thimerosol, the supposed trigger of autism caused by vaccinations, did the incidence of autism fall?
No.
The claim that thimerosol and vaccines cause autism has been proven wrong empirically because of this, and the people who continue to push this dangerous meme kill kids.
--
BMO
I'm pro-vaccine, but engineering a virus to live in your system for an extended period of time (up to the life of the carrier) is scary in a number of ways.
Others have mentioned the possibility of a mutation taking the previously harmless virus into harmful territory, which is bad enough, but remember this virus has been engineered to survive in your hostile immune system, so if it does mutate, good luck in getting rid of it afterward.
Less obviously, if it survives in your body indefinitely and activates your immune system, it's not clear what the long-term effects of that would be. How much energy would your body expend pumping out antibodies? Would that distract it from fighting other diseases? Can your immune system become fatigued? Studies show people with poor dental hygine are more succeptible to heart disease, and the reason given for this is that the immune system is busy fighting the bacteria in your mouth which makes it less able to take care of the internal stuff.
Regular vaccines are in your body for a couple days, tops, and generally only given while you are already in good health. Even in the unlikely event that the vaccine temporarily weakened your immune system enough that you catch another disease, the trade-off is good because the vaccine is generally preventing something much worse.
One of these vaccines would put constant stress on your immune system. Is that ok? It's really hard to say.
I completely get it. There are people who simply do not believe a specific claim of science. They were convinced of the counter claims the same way 90% of the people are convinced of the scientific claims, someone told them who appeared to be authoritative in the matter. Very few people have the resources or skills to replicate the vast majority of scientific discoveries so until they see it in use or have it explained to them by some authority in the matter, they have to trust someone. That does not make them anti-science, it makes them skeptical about a claim. They could very well believe and understand all the other science claims out there.
Like I said, stop playing Bush, it's not a with us or against us situation.
>That does not make them anti-science, it makes them skeptical about a claim.
When you take Jenny McCarthy's claim over a doctor's claim, you are anti-science.
There is being skeptical, and then there is just plain nuts.
Jenny McCarthy kills kids.
--
BMO
The entire "anti vaccinaion" movement is about as correct and responsive as the "pro annorexia" movement. It's based on misunderstandings _deliberately_ peddled to the ignorant by the evil. None of which is science.
The pivotal techniques are about as sane as Jan Brady yelling "Exact Words Marcia!!!"
The problme is tha the "anti-vaxx movement" doesn't want actual and reliable information, they want people who will tell them they are "just fine and smart for deciding against proof"
Put simply, you yourself know personally, or know of _billions_ _of_ _poeple_ who were vaccinated and sufferend no ill effects. If even a tiny fraction of what was said against vaccination were true, someone would have had to hide a chain of fifty million body bags and about 100 million "vaccine injuries" or whatever. It just _didn't_ happen.
The classic "I'll just go elsewhere for reliable informaton" is classic avoidance. You prove the "anti science" part true right there.
You don't have to be "unbiased" if the facts are already biased. You don't have to service the stupid, you just have to keep them and their kids away from yours so your's dont suffer from their stupidity. There is no honor or reason to treat one persons stupidity as "just as valid" as everbody elses' reasoned fact.
I've heard of all those "proud parents of unvaccinated children", well "pride goeth before distruction"... We are just trying to keep that distruciton at bey for as long as possible.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Think it through. (I am absolutely pro-vaccine BTW.) The Varicella Zoster lives in your body. You _must_ get chicken pox in order to later get shingles. you don't just "catch shingles". This means that a virus (like zoster) can hang out in your body while your body "forgets" its immune response.
So this theoretical self-recurring "vaccination" could easily have unintended consequences that wouldn't be knownt until the second or Nth recurrance.
And every viral recuuance destroys or damages tissue. The sucky thing about shingles is not that it happens, but that the nerve it errupts out of can become perminantly inflamed.
So the model virus for the idea is kind of a strong example of why the idea might just suck donkey balls. The only way to really test such a long-lasting recurrent phenomonia for a whole lifetime. Think of how long the average hip replacement or surgical mesh was in a body before they started to go bad and people discovered the unintended consequences. And those are just innert physical objects.
We should be _very_ suspicious of anything "active" that we intend to engineer and put into our bodies as effective viral symbiotes. We haven't even gotten "piece of steel", let along "heart valve", right yet. Self replicating virus is a little ambitious just now.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
>It seems you missed the overall point here, which was "Cite your source, or shut up". We likely share a similar opinion on this particular subject. However, if you can't cite a valid source, if you can't point out solid, peer-reviewed research, then you're essentially acting on faith, just like the creationists, just like the anti-vax crowd.
You missed the point in that the anti-vaccine crowd has *no* peer reviewed study that says vaccines cause autism, and the one that was, was retracted, and Andrew Wakefield lost his license due to fraud.
> I realize, probably better than most, how frustrating it is to have the same argument time and time again, with so little success swaying the opinions of others, but if you just say "screw it, they're all morons", then you're just helping history to repeat itself.
No, they need to be riduculed and made embarrassed, because of the hundreds of thousands of studies on how and why vaccines work, they can't be arsed to read a single one of them. They are kooks, and the way you deal with kooks is to riducule and ostracize them until they come around.
> you're no better than the anti-science fundamentalists.
Might I direct you to the nearest university library and fuck off.
--
BMO
But anybody who takes one case, particularly as adjuged by an actor or public figure, as "credible science" is not qualified to judged the credibility of science.
So the problem is that, in the same way that I wouldn't buy meat from a butcher who took cleanleness advice from a twelth century book on procedures for health as published in paris of the time, I don't tend to beleive people who MISTtake ANECDOTES as SCIENCE.
If you are going to beleive McCarthy as a true case, but you aren't going to balance it against the TWO to FIVE BILLION CASES of complicaiton-free vaccination that have happened since the discovery of vaccination, then you are demonstrated to automatically be No Sane Judge Of Science.
In short, anybody who beleives Jenny DESPITE the Evidence that PROVES JENNY UTTERLY WRONG, is yes, automatically anti science.
Anti-Vaccination people are Medical Flat Earthers.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
People who deliberately spread misinformation so that kids die of whooping cough, measels, and other preventable diseases do kill kids as surely as holding a gun and pulling the trigger.
Because they do it not out of concern for children, but because of money, and backing away from fraud exposes the fraud. So they continue.
If you feel that this is out of line, feel free to foe me.
--
BMO
That isn't even a citation. They have recently said that the Flu Vaccine (and only that one vaccine) is nowhere near as effective in the very young and very old as was originally thought. With those numbers ranging from only fifty-something (injected) to eight-nine percent (nasal spray) efficacy in those groups. This makes it _more_ important that the median age (not very young or very old) get the vaccine as that protects the young and old from initial exposure more effectively than the direct applicaiton to the extremes.
That doesn't change the theory of vaccination at all.
It also doesn't say "getting a flu shot is bad".
It just says "we need to do better", which is kind of the refrain of science. We always need to do better.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
You don't have to hate all science to be anti-science anymore than you have to be against women's suffrage to be sexist. When you reject science when it disagrees with what you really wish to be true, you're anti-science. Either you accept the outcome of the scientific method or you don't.
What in the fuck does free speech have anything to do with this?
Jenny McCarthy is free to say whatever damn-fool thing she wants to say, but just because she's free to do so doesn't mean she isn't responsible for the bullshit that comes out of her mouth. There are people dying because of what these loons are saying, and they are responsible for that. You morons who dredge up free speech at the drop of a hat really generally mean "consequence-free speech." There's no right to that and there never will be. You get to live with the consequences of the things you say.
someone told them who appeared to be authoritative in the matter
Yeah, really authorative. A Model who's claim to fame is that she managed to make Jim Carrey say "I do".
it's not a with us or against us situation
That's not it. The problem is that this nude models statements have caused the lives of more than one thousand children is the problem. That many, many more now have disabilities and brain damage because of her. Her statements and those of the fraud she uses as justification have been proven wrong. Still she keeps pushing the issue, thereby killing more children. Not only is she killing children whose parents refuse the vaccine, but by punching holes in the herd protection, she is also killing children who for other reasons can not have these vaccines (allergies etc).
The Jesus anti-science crowd holds back the education of a portion of the population. That's bad. This anti-science crowd, lead by this particular nude model, is killing children. That's pretty serious as fringe nutters go.
Really? your argument is OMG YOU KILL KIDS by not swallowing everybit of information from the government as fact? and you get MOD POINTS?! this is slashdot, please stop that. Here we say 'there has been no known study proving a direct link between thimerosol and autism"
How many of you had taken all vaccine shots "offered" and " ordered" by the state? Are you plethora of health? Do you belive so strongly in vaccine industry so that you would risk your child with it? Or will you demand independent (if that is still possible) evaluation of results of the new vaccines? Instead of flaming war between pro and anti vaccination ,there should be logical view of the stands.
I am pro science, also I do not beleive in truthfullnes of "scientific" results offered by the vaccine industry.
And since there are no independent studies ( untainted by donations or personal contact with the industry) I stay by "do not harm" doctrine.
Obviously you do not know all the efects of "modern" vaccine ofered on the market, so "do no harm" principle should point "take no vaccine if not urgently needed" direction.
I would like to see if the owners and board of directors of the vaccine industry take all the vaccines they sell , also does their children take all those offered vaccines.
I would also like to see do the doctors that preach vaccination take the doctrine and offer public data about vaccination of their children and family.
Without that , vaccines are just a product that sells good in time of public fear, but it won't give you a more healty life othervise.
Some types of viruses, like AIDS and flu, mutate more rapidly because of their mechanism of making DNA from RNA which is error-prone. http://www.virology.ws/2009/05/10/the-error-prone-ways-of-rna-synthesis/ Other viruses are more stable may benefit from the idea in TFA. However, to me it seems dangerous to engineer viruses just reduce the number of required booster shots.
Your username is apt. You may attempt to redefine what antiscience means just by saying what the individual components mean and you can pretend that other people care about your definition, too. But that's not how English works and nobody gives a shit what your definition of the word is if it doesn't match with how it's used. I think this thread is basically over. I'll go argue with someone smarter.
Actually, you probably should have looked up what the definition of antiscience was before you tried to redefine it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience
You see, there is already a defined term and it is the same as combining two words together as the term is.
for those who have bad reactions to a given vaccine it could mean death or a lifetime of ongoing issues.
only those in denial won't accept the fact there are exceptions and why most all medical treatments come with warnings.
Even better: "Not getting your shorts [sic] threatens the herd immunity concept'. This last one is really a blatant admission that their crap doesn't work in the first place. It shouldn't matter if the person next to you wasn't dumb enough to take their shots, after all you took the vaccine, you're protected, right??
No, you Anonymous Coward dumbass - That's not how herd immunity works.
Imagine everyone in a kindergarten is vaccinated against smallpox but Fred's vaccine didn't work and for whatever reason Fred isn't immune to smallpox (biology is never 100%). However, Fred remains protected against smallpox because the rest of his class ("his herd") is immune, so the virus doesn't get the chance to leap to him.
Now imagine 10 kids in Fred's class are NOT vaccinated against smallpox - Now the virus has a chance to take hold and infect Fred, even though he's vaccinated. Fred has lost the benefit of the immunity of the herd.
Vaccination works because a) the immunity takes hold on the majority and b) we live in herds.
"contrary to opinions from the anti-science crowd..."
What is the point of this statement? I mean seriously, what's the point? I've been reading this site for years and it just seems to be getting more and more like this—which is not a good thing.
Who cares what the "anti-science" crowd thinks? Why even bother mentioning them? Why acknowledge their existence, particularly when NOT responding to one directly?
Just report the fucking story. What some other childishly labeled crowd thinks about it is irrelevant. I can't even get through a remotely interesting story about geology without some asshole making a "the earth is only 6000-years-old" joke. Who... fucking... cares? It's not. We know. We get it. The joke is old and tiresome. I really wish I was coming here to read interesting discussions about the science at hand. Instead, I'm constantly deluged with this kind of childish bullshit.
The argument is devolved to a binary straw-man: a "pro/con" proposition - to the end of stifling nuanced inquiry and actual understanding.
Mary Shelly wasn't anti-science when she wrote "Frankenstein".
Goethe wasn't "anti-science" when he wrote "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". If you aren't immediately familiar with the fable, it is worth revisiting. The story concerns the casual nature of hubris, particularly in the domain of technical insight.
There is a very real delusional aspect to a culture that uses scientific method in an atomised scope and then applies one technical outcome in a pervasive manner.
The operative phrase here is: "knows enough to be dangerous." Another such is "unintended consequences".
Let us quote from the article, and allow the unintended consequences aspect to unfold its manifest possibilities in our imaginations:
I don't want this in the hands of the same people who made Vioxx, Thalidomide or Lipitor.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
One of the big points about viruses that remain in the body long-term, is that they somehow manage to find shelter in which to evade the immune system -- at least for most of the time, and at least from those parts of the immune system that might otherwise eradicate them. (See for example 'virus latency' at http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/abstract/S1931-3128(10)00217-9?script=true/).
Many of the mechanisms of that sheltering are still unknown, or incompletely known. That means, in turn, that it's at least not going to be a surefire winner to have an extra protein -- against which you want a really strong protective immune response -- tagging along with the sheltering virus.
Plus, it would seem that the main article is reporting a theoretical study (from the 'supporting information' for the PNAS paper referred to in the main story -- which is all that I could so far access -- here http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2012/11/14/1209683109.DCSupplemental/pnas.201209683SI.pdf -- other than the abstract).
The status of the matter appears to be that this is an 'if only . . . ' -- so far.
-wb-
The anger is to be expected. I don't necessarily agree with the polemical approach, but it's totally understandable. Vaccines are not mysterious at all. We understand how they work, we know that they DO work, and self-important cranks are out there convincing people not to vaccinate their kids. They are within their rights, no doubt, but so are the people who call them any sort of mean names. They cause harm! Not only to themselves, but also to those who cannot receive vaccines and who rely on herd immunity to protect them from dangerous diseases. The proud ignorance combined with the public health issues is enough to cause rage.
Care to give some examples for Sallies, Henries and their brothers?
And as a site note, if 1 of 1,000,000 dies due to an illness comming from vaccination, that is far better than if 300,000 from 1,000,000 die because no one is vaccined.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Since vaccines don't conferr "immunity" they conferr "resistance", herd immunity is actually more than just about Fred.
If you are vaccintated against Anthrax, the white powder doesn't flee the room when you enter, nor does it bounce off your skin. The Anthrax enters your system and your system fights with it. In effective vaccination you are pre-armed to fight the disease off before it becomes fully contageous and, more importantly, before it can become fully harmful and do significant damage to your body and its subsystems.
So lets say there is this disease and everone in a classroom is vaccinated against it, but a substitute teacher brings it into the classroom by teaching a single day durring the communicable phase. All the kids get "a little sick" after suffering one exposure. In effect none of the kids get meaningfully sick, their exposure results in a "sub clinical" illness.
Now lets say that the vaccine is 95% effective. So in a class of twenty kids, one has received no real benefit of from the vaccination. The susbstitute provides one exposure. The one child gets sick and, for ease of numbers, is contageous for three days before being weithdrawn from school. Now each of the ninteen other students was exposed to the disease four times.
Remember that each exposure is a strain on the immune system. There is a small chance that a second child will get sick.
Now lets add one completely unvaccinated child. There is now the substitute and two children who get sick. This is a total of seven exposures to the disease. There each of the vaccinated children is now seven times more likely for their exposure to become intense enough for the disease to become symptomatic and contageous.
Now assume that the unvaccinated child has unvaccinated siblings. That family becomes a hotspot. All the kids get sick. Each kid returns to school and mabye one adds an exposure or three to just one more of the kids in that class. That child is now ten times more likely to become symptomatically sick. Which, should it happen, would cause another three exposures to the entire class.
So put two unvaccinated children in the class,and have a 95% efficacy there is a good chance that one more child will be unprotected and the class will end up with a mortality rate more than the 15% represented by the unprotected kids. 30%, 80% or even 100% normal morbidity (clinical infections with a typical spread for results of disease X) becomes the expected result set.
This is the kind of thing where the anti-vaxxers then see statistics (that they don't understand) that demonstrates that "during such-and-such outbreak most of the overcome were vaccinated" and then conclude that vaccination is unsafe because "most of those overcome were vaccinated." Sure. That is mathematically certian in any community where most people are vaccinated. This is because the distribution is over "most of the people". Doh.
The magic number for herd immunity is about 90 percent. Above ninety percent the herd is effectively immune, below ninety, well "not so much". So a community wide vaccination is only as good as its weakest local links. Given that vaccination is never 100% effective, you need to get nearly 100% vaccinated to become protected above the 90% needed for the herd.
Small, concentrated communities of unvacinated persons act as echo chambers, or detonation zones, so lets say a small community has ten anti-vaxx famlies that all like to get together at the same "health center" or church... Whoops...
Having unvaccinated people in your midst is like inviting suicide bombers to your market place. They are primed, ready to explode with some disease if they get exposed themselves, and they will take out the vaccinated as well. Most of the people killed by terrorists are not terrorists so it is unsafe to not be a terrorist! That's anti-vaxx logic turned into highest hyperbole. But its not terribly wrong.
This video below is narrated by a jackass, but it will give you a nice visual verson of this topic:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRclbfK5q08
Sorry for his tone, but the math is right, if super-simplified. The "non-classroom" version is kind of funny for its vitriol, but I didn't post that here.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press