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Universal Flu Vaccine "Blueprint" Discovered
minty3 writes "Scientists say they used the pandemic as a 'natural experiment' to discover how the body's immune system builds resistance to the flu. The research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, showed how certain immune cells helped some avoid the severe illness. 'Our findings suggest that by making the body produce more of this specific type of CD8 T cell, you can protect people against symptomatic illness,' said study leader Professor Ajit Lalvani, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, in a statement. 'This provides the blueprint for developing a universal flu vaccine.'"
That's good news for people with universal flu.
Right, try to kill a multibillion dollar annual industry and see how quickly this research just vanishes. /cynic
If I was a multibillion dollar industry I'd very much appreciate the fact of having a product that gets sold to every human being on the planet, every year right about the time for holidays, scoring me a big boost in the Q4.
But then again I also believe that based on available evidence it was Lee Harvey Oswald that shot Kennedy.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Not too expensive so that everyone in the first world can afford it, and bulk-cheap enough that every first world government will help every third world country pay for it for their citizens.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
“The immune system produces these CD8 T cells in response to the usual seasonal flu,” Lalvani said. “Unlike antibodies, they target the core of the virus, which doesn’t change, even in new pandemic strains.”
This simple argument does not entirely convince me that they found a universal vaccine. Proving that it is universal should require extensive experiments on many different strains. Can any experts pitch in why they really did find the key to a universal flu vaccine?
Putting aside that I can't see how they ever came to the conclusion that the universe needed a flu vaccination, what's even harder to figure out is what size of dosage will they need to service something that's (last I heard) approximately 56 billion light years wide, and where the hell are they going to inject the needle?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yeah, that was me too. But then on year 11 I got the flu & couldn't get out of bed for a damn week. I prefer my sick days to be a little less sick so now I get the shot. I'll let you know in about 6 more years if the shot works out better for me, but so far no adverse reactions and no flu.
Isn't that lead?
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
This is how zombie movies always start. Some new "universal" vaccine that induces growth of one type of cell. No thanks. I like being un-undead.
It's not entirely clear from the abstract, so just for some background (of what I assume is behind the paywall) the main problem with severe flu is cytokine storms. Basically, your immune system can get into a positive feedback loop trying to kill the virus and wind up killing most of the body's cells instead. In the Pandemic Flu of 1918, a great number of the dead were the healthiest ones with great immune systems.
So I'm assuming what's going on here is that they've isolated the parts of the immune system that actually kill the flu, and have a plan to prime them for action. That would be super-awesome. The annual flu deaths, just in the US is in the 3000-49000 per year range. If you have to use government terms, that's at least a 9/11 every year, and if you have to spend a trillion dollars on something, this would be a much better target.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Nah. All that would do is get you a bunch of equally daft replacements.
...that will eventually produce CD8 T resistant flu.
Double edged sword.
Damn that Darwin!
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I believe the US congress has already been proven to be immune to common sense ;)
"Scientists say they used the pandemic"
What pandemic?
Right, try to kill a multibillion dollar annual industry and see how quickly this research just vanishes. /cynic
Did the polio vaccine kill big pharma? The vaccines for measles, shingles, cervical cancer? The answer, of course, is no. Timeline of vaccines
The pharmaceutical industry --- like the life insurance industry ---- benefits from a population that is active, healthy, prosperous, and long-lived
Yes, its a shame we didn't learn our lesson after the huge pandemics of vaccine resistant polio. Clearly we should let people continue to die of the flu to prevent it from possibly evolving into something harmful. Or maybe if we just kill everyone who gets the flu we can breed flu resistant humans and finally eradicate this deadly disease.
You can't spell "oneiromancy" without "roman".
Flu isn't prevalent in Q4 or any specific time of the year at all, especially on a global scale. The reason why people get flu more often in bad weather conditions is because they all crowd inside and the contamination risk is much higher when the people density is up.
Also, it has nothing to do with your "resistance" and vitamin C doesn't help cure the flu. Flu is not a common cold but an entirely different strain of virus. Both are not the least impressed with people eating vitamin C or drinking orange juice. The only thing that vitamin C will help against is a vitamin C deficiency. Whether you will get ill from any of these viruses is mostly determined by how well adapted you already are against that particular virus or something close enough related. You will get infected, you possibly will spread the virus, you just won't get any major symptoms if your body is able to deal with it in an efficient way.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Yes, its a shame we didn't learn our lesson after the huge pandemics of vaccine resistant polio. Clearly we should let people continue to die of the flu to prevent it from possibly evolving into something harmful. Or maybe if we just kill everyone who gets the flu we can breed flu resistant humans and finally eradicate this deadly disease.
You can't really draw a parallel between polio and the flu. The flu has a bunch of non-human hosts that it can jump between. It will happily sit around in the bird/pig/whatever population until it mutates into something that can infect humans again. And birds go everywhere.
AFAIK, polio is for humans (or primates at least) only
I get it often (every few years at least - with 4 kids in the household exposure is inevitable) but never that bad. I've heard people say they are so sick they "can't get out of bed", and i've never figured out whether that's a figure of speech or literal, but i've never been that sick.
Right now i'm probably the sickest i've been in a long time, probably flu, or a really bad cold. So bring on the vaccine :)
You'd probably compare cancer to to the measles in your simplicity...
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It is a figure of speech. Or at least hyperbole. If a person really is so sick that they physically cannot get out of bed, an ambulance should be called immediatly and they should be taken to the emergency room. They need real medical attention.
You can't really draw a parallel between polio and the flu. The flu has a bunch of non-human hosts that it can jump between. It will happily sit around in the bird/pig/whatever population until it mutates into something that can infect humans again.
It will do that regardless of whether or not humans continue to be a viable host for existing flu viruses.
Fair point about polio.
You can't spell "oneiromancy" without "roman".
... the flu discovers YOU!!!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
I fall in two higher risk categories (over 50 and diabetic), and so have gotten the shots seven years in a row now. I've had no problems, and in fact I got one 2 days ago and had no local reaction, not even redness, and can't even find the spot where I was stuck. Unfortunately, for me flu symptoms are usually not all that much different than the ones they tell me are normal for colds, so I can't swear that I actually avoided any particular strains of flu, but I have had a pretty good run of not getting sick at all most winters.
Who is John Cabal?
I think not.... if the vaccine immunizes against a large number of viruses ---- it will create a competitive gap; in viruses affecting humans, so eventually, a strain of some virus will probably emerge that fits that gap.
I am all for a vaccine that offers some protection/mitigation against all known types of flu. But I think implying that it's a universal cure-all against all future strains of flu, is more hope than reality.
No, the adage is that you shouldn't bother trying to make a better mousetrap. The original design is pretty much optimal as far as killing mice goes.
Except it's not. Plenty of mice and rats are smart enough to not trigger the traps. Not only do you not kill the mice, you end up feeding them a delicious snack.
Scientist discovers the explanation for a piece of a phenomenon.
Journalist makes up a news stating it will lead to a cure for cancer/autism/flu/aging/diabetes/whatever
If you read a bunch of scientific news titles, you could wonder why we are not immortals yet. It would be nice if scientific journalists could stop writing their headlines with the idea that readers are stupids
Meh, I have been afflicted by the flu significantly enough that I "couldn't get out of bed" for a week. The amount of time I spent not in a supine position could be considered rounding error (bathroom, walking slowly from couch to bed or vice versa, etc).
The term is a reasonable first-pass approximation, especially when speaking with others. Yes, you may be correct that most people this sick can, indeed, arise from bed; however, they cannot in any practical sense do so.
Hell, I had to take breaks while walking down the 10 meter hallway. Practically speaking, I couldn't really get out of bed.
Well, clearly, there's your problem. Your ceilings are too high!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
FYI, Nature has been known to publish absolute crap... stuff that should have never gotten past peer review.
I know nothing about this particular topic, but I want to warn anyone who thinks that "published in Nature" means "reliable". Actually, none of the "latest research" should be considered reliable, but I think that Nature is one of the worst high-profile journals.
That even with the current vaccine which clearly does not cure the flu, they are able to maintain a government subsidized monopoly with "almost no spare capacity", even though it is supposedly "not very profitable".
On top of that the new, effective, vaccine which would be protected by patents, would replace the old one (while keeping the government subsidies) AND it should clearly be more expensive to produce - both because there's "almost no spare capacity" AND because it is new technology.
And that's just regarding those measly 300 million or so US Americans.
The market, protected by patents, is THE WORLD.
Seven billion humans and climbing.
Every year. Just in time for the holidays.
Enough to make a CEO of a pharmaceutical company believe in Santa Claus.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
And your description indicates that for you, it is a figure of speech. There is no problem with that, but that is what it is.
And your description indicates that for you, it is a figure of speech. There is no problem with that, but that is what it is.
Well, I suppose we could get into a pedantic argument. Personally, I think you are being excessively literal. I would rebut by pointing out that by your definition someone would have to be in a dead, in a coma, or paralyzed to be unable to get out of bed by rolling/sliding out of the bed. They might be unable to rise from the floor after sliding out, but they could still theoretically get out of bed (ergo, not too sick to get out).
I think most people would have a literal definition of "too sick to get out of bed" that includes some functional ability once the bed egress has been accomplished.
No doubt we will be better off agreeing to disagree.
Yup