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Scientists Believe There's Finally A Cure For The Common Cold (dailymail.co.uk)
schwit1 writes:
After decades of research, the fabled cure for the common cold could be on its way in the form of a nasal spray called SynGEM, the brainchild of a Dutch biotechnology company. After successful tests on mice and rats (yes, they get colds too), 36 human volunteers at London's Imperial College are now trying out the spray.
While colds can be caused by hundreds of different viruses, just three viruses are responsible for 80% of them -- and yet colds are responsible for 40% of the sick days taken in the U.S., according to another article, as well as 75 million doctor visits (costing $7.7 billion) every year, plus another $2.9 billion for cold medications. One experimental medicine professor at London's Imperial College London has spent the last 30 years researching colds and flu, and though a cure has never been found, he now tells the Daily Mail, "I think we are on the verge of it. I really do."
While colds can be caused by hundreds of different viruses, just three viruses are responsible for 80% of them -- and yet colds are responsible for 40% of the sick days taken in the U.S., according to another article, as well as 75 million doctor visits (costing $7.7 billion) every year, plus another $2.9 billion for cold medications. One experimental medicine professor at London's Imperial College London has spent the last 30 years researching colds and flu, and though a cure has never been found, he now tells the Daily Mail, "I think we are on the verge of it. I really do."
The corporate lobbyists will influence the FDA to put a stop to this, pronto.
Until I saw TFA is from the DailyMail
I tried it and it works. As a side effect it causes your nose to fall off.
Don't let the companies that manufacture cold medicine get anywhere near this.
it nice to see, that something as a human being sick, is calculated as corporate loss.
seeing as how we have cured exactly 0 viral diseases. We have prevented a few with inoculations, until the idiot anti-vaxers came along.
I... a... a... achooo!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The "common cold" is really just a set of symptoms that might be related to any of over 200 viruses. The vaccine mentioned in the article is for one of those, RSV.
I can't find precise numbers, but according to this article, RSV causes less than 20% of colds. Interestingly, the number in this article has apparently recently been adjusted upwards from 10% as that number is still appearing in google caches.
So, this vaccine will not help for >80% of the cases of common cold. On the plus side, RSV is really bad in babies. So it still has value.
Maybe the common cold is used as a method 40% of the time to get a sick day, but that doesn't mean that its actually the cause.
But it gets balanced out by the assholes who show up to work sick with a cold, soon contaminating their coworkers.
And when the planet hit the sun
I saw the face of Allison
Allison, Allison, Allison, Allison
But as long as we are going to go around spreading misinformation:
Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking
When I hear the silly things that you say
I think somebody better put out the big light
'Cause I can't stand to see you this way
Allison, I know this world is killing you
Oh, Allison, my aim is true
My aim is true
Nope, it turns out white people are just allergic to the brown ones! And here all this time we thought they were just incorrigible racists! What an unexpected twist!
And beer. Drink lots and lots of beer. Kills everything.
So now people fall sick from been worked too much...?
4wdloop
your body doesn't hang on to spare C like other vitamins, so you need C every day. make sure to ge at least a gram (not milligram) of C from veggies, juice, or vitamins each day. C is one of the things your body builds immune stuff from; no parts, no defenses.
oh, great job scientists, what excuse am i supposed to use now?!
Given the fact that this category has a long, long history of BS claims -- all future claims should be filed under bullsh*t until they are proven.
Or just eat the garlic. Whole bulbs of it. Wario style.
From a reputable source: Dr. McCoy noted that modern medicine was still searching for a cure for the common cold in the 23rd century. McCoy found a number of promising biological candidates on Omega IV that might lead to a viable cure.
Sure, those three viruses may currently account for 80% of colds (although I suspect it's regional, and the culprits vary from place to place, like the Flu viruses) but if they're eliminated, people not staying home sick with one of those three will instead be exposed to one of the other hundreds of cold viruses until they get sick. Now a different set of 3 viruses will account for most colds, but there will be just as many colds. Anyone who works with the airline industry is still going to get sick frequently.
Additionally, saying there's an $11 billion+ 'cost' of colds is disingenuous, as that money trades hands. From the point of view of the medical industry, they'd be losing $billions every year if the common cold were to be cured. Salaried positions tend to have X amount of paid sick days, which are redeemed by the employee no matter what, so employers pay that money whether or not the employee actually gets sick; you could say 'lost productivity costs' but if those sick days are taken as de facto vacation, the effect is the same. A large proportion of sick days are actually "my bipolar is kicking in and I'm too depressed to come into work" or "my child is sick" or "I need to do something today and you didn't give me off the day I asked for" etc. and those problems won't go away easily.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
1. Don't live in a spartan home. Let it get a little dirty, and leave some dust. You build up immunities and you will see how rare you get sick.
2. If your nose stats to get stopped up, blow it vigerously for five minutes and watch the problem go away, that's how animals do it.
3. Eat lots of spicy food.
Problem solved.
It's realistic to take the annual quadrivalent vaccine, to take a couple of days off, and/or to work from home until the risk of contamination has passed. It's also realistic to take some vitamin C, zinc and whey protein powder daily to assist with prevention.
$2.9 billion spent on cold medications... I'm sure the people profiting from selling cold medications will be very happy... Ohhh well, they still got cancer to support their livelihood.
AccountKiller
Never got a cold anymore since I have been going to work with this good old bicycle. For years.
Now of course this only became possible once we didn't need to bring children to school, etc.
So probably there is room for chemical things...
Herve S.
Ah, there we go. A bullshit ad story.
I find this article and discussion odd. I have not had a cold in many years. For several years now since I've been using zinc oral spray and/or tablets prophylactically I have never come down with a full-blown cold. I've considered the cold cured by zinc for quite a while now. The trick is knowing when to use it and how much. Almost always I can quickly sense if there's a severe infection starting and know when to zinc up and how much. Usually only need to do one or a few doses of oral spray, but in difficult cases it may require multiple doses of oral tablets (2 tablets every few hours and in *really* bad cases 3 is ok).
The main side effects of zinc are 1) metallic tasting food especially fruit like strawberries; 2) nausea if taken on an empty stomach (not advised)
Its a little known fact common cold can kill cancers, the virus likes the cancerous cells. So if you eradicate the common cold, cancer cases will go up..
I mean if no one is going to get a cold Japan will have nothing to complain about.
Getting a cold is like the national sport over there.
2 It must be cheap since if you do nothing most of the time it'll go away.
3 It must be very safe because if you do nothing most of the time it'll go away.
Those 3 reasons are probably the big ones why it didn't get developed before. (Since it'd be hard to make something that safe that worked that quickly and little money in the end.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Reminds me of a SciFi short story in the late 1960s. Some scientist invents a full cure for the cold. Trouble is, once the nasal passages are fully free of virus and snot and stuff, it turns out humans have an incredibly sensitive olfactory system. Teensie everyday levels of chemicals (smoke, perfume, flowers, etc) a painfully overloading the smell response. :-)
I'm not giving away the ending
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Lots of it.
Makes me feel better every time.
I call TFA BS because there's no known cure or technique to destroy viruses up to the moment, except for natural human defences/ human immune system.
If a technique is developed or new technology against flu viruses, then HIV can be attacked and wiped out of the planet too.
Just wash your hands... well.
I started doing this a couple decades ago; wash hands well after doing or before doing any of the following:
Handling money
going out in public
Using the restroom
eating
before cooking anything
after getting home from anywhere for any reason
after touching anything else that belongs to someone else (so their computer keyboards, personal effects, etc.
Use real soap, warm water, lather up, rinse and then dry.
This will dramatically reduce your exposure to all kinds of bacteria and viruses, including cold viruses.
I get at most, one cold a year, sometimes I don't get one at all.
> Different things have different units of measure; some of us understand that money is a wholly inappropriate metric for the value of human life.
Money is how you buy longer life. Want safer highways? Gotta spend money. Better doctors? Want to see the doctor more often? That'll cost money. Want to test every piece of meat for contamination before it's sold? You're going to need to spend a lot of money.
You could go about your day very safe. In traffic, you could have a professional driver drive ahead of you and another behind you, to protect you from accidents. You could have two body guards in the car with you. That's how we protect the president. It costs a lot of money. You COULD choose to hire a body guard to protect your life rather than spending any money going out to eat, or buying a cool phone, or paying for any entertainment. You've decided protecting your life with a bodyguard isn't worth the money - you'd rather buy Olive Garden and a Nexus phone.
Here is the company's announcement of the clinical trials. Mucosis Initiates First-in-Human Study of SynGEM, a Needle-Free Nasal Spray RSV Vaccine
Have you read my blog lately?
Right now, today, you have a choice of whether to spend your money installing fire sprinklers in your home. It'll cost about $6,000. There' a 1/50,000 chance it'll save your life. As you decide whether or not to spend that $6,000 to protect your life, you are putting a dollar value on your own life.
Installing fire sprinklers in 100,000 homes will cost $600 million and save about 6 lives. ($10 million per life). Should we do that?
Does your answer change when you find out that by instead spending that $600 million educating kids and encouraging healthy habits we'd save about 25,000 times as many lives, from heart disease and similar killers? ($4,000 per life).
We can save lives for $10 million each, or spend that money saving more lives, at only $4K each). Why should we not spend the money on the $10 million/life idea? Because it's not worth it. It's not worth spending $10 million to save one life when you can instead spend that $10 million on saving 2,500 lives. Saving one life isn't worth $10 million.
Here are some costs to save lives in various ways.
http://www.payitforward.founda...
...invent a cure for not bothering your ass and a hangover...that will soon bring down that 40% figure.
So you think if you cure one virus you've cured them all. Like proving that P=NP? Interesting lack of knowledge on your part.
OTOH, why is it so hard to belief you can use the natural human defences as a tool to kill certain virii in a more systematic way than the body uses it naturally?
If you read the material from the manufacturer, they are specifically working on a vaccine for RSV. RSV causes perhaps 20% of colds, depending on your data source. The remainder are caused by the rest...parainfluenza, coronavirus, rhinovirus, and other non-isolates. RSV is also most common in younger populations, so while I'm not discounting the value of reducing pediatric colds and their symptoms, it's less useful for adults. Perhaps they can expand their work to include other cold viruses, but right now they're specifically limiting the scope of their work.
You win the non sequitur award for today.
It's never been done, therefor it can't be done. But if it were done in this one case, it could be done in all cases.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
After 80% of colds are cured, the fraction of sick days caused by colds will drop to 39%.
Fucking sheep always want a quick fix for everything. I hope you choke to death on your fast food.
Just take a cold shower or bath now and then. No influenza nor anything of that kind in more than 20 years doing this (had quite a few before).
Syngem is an RSV vaccine. Certainly not a common cold vaccine which is mainly caused by rhinovirus (of which there are many many different types). RSV is primarily problem in very young infants as disease progression can be very rapid and serious. Please get your facts straight.
Given that you can save lives at $4,000 each, you shouldn't spend your money at $10 million each. Saving a life isn't worth $10 million, because you can do more with that $10 million. The VALUE (market value, in fact) is less than $10 million.
> price and value are not the same, that you can't measure a thing's value by its price?
Quite the opposite. What you buy, at what price, is an objective measure of what you REALLY value. He COULD donate half his salary to save several lives. Instead, he probably choose to have a nicer car (or cars) than he needs, dinners out, etc. He made the choice, so clearly he VALUES the fancy car more than he values a stranger's life - he had to choose between the two, and he chose the car.
Death is ultimate cure for all ailments.
Until the cold becomes resistant to it and thus even stronger.
A drug called "Placonaril" by Viropharma.
Pleconaril (Picovir) failed FDA trials, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think at first glance. The problem is that the FDA considers common colds to be a trivial health issue for the general public, with very low mortality. Easily treatable with supportive care. However, the segment of the population that might take this drug is very, very large (most of the population). As a result, the FDA will demand perfection from any clinical trials, with the bar set at an impossible to meet standard. Back when this drug was in development, I knew this is exactly what would happen -- the moment Viropharma decided to go after the Common Cold patient population, I knew it was doomed.
The only way something like this could ever pass, is if they defined the drug's indications to be a more dangerous member of the Picornavirus, affecting a much smaller population. Like Enterovirus D68 post-exposure prophylaxis in a child, Poliovirus post-exposure prophylaxis in a non-immune patient, or something like Fulminant Hepatitis A or post-exposure prophyaxis in a non-immunized patient. They didn't understand the politics of drug approval, and so they got squashed. And so it is too late now.
Of course there is: I protected myself from the common cold with an APK hosts file!
16 years ago, I had a really bad cold (and I *never* get bad ones). A friend told me about zinc gluconate, and I went into a drug store, and found the only brand for sale at the time. I looked at the packaging... and my jaw dropped. I have *never* seen something like that, over the counter, with 4 or 5 citations of studies from the JAMA and NEJM, two of the most prestigious medical journals in the world.
If you start taking it when you first realize you've got one, it can kill it in a day or so, per the studies - certainly, it dries my nose up in half an hour. If you take it a few days after it starts, the studies say it will cut the length in half..
You take one three to four times a day, NOT MORE, MORE IS NOT BETTER), and dissolve it under your tongue, then don't eat or drink anything for at least 20 min.
It works. I just bought some a week ago at CVS for 18 tabs for under $6US - do you *really* think the Shkrellis who run Big Pharma are going to be less than an order of magnitude more expensive?
mark
How do you study something for 30 years with no success but still stay positive (and not just kill yourself)? And how do you still get paid? 'One experimental medicine professor at London's Imperial College London has spent the last 30 years researching colds and flu, and though a cure has never been found, he now tells the Daily Mail, "I think we are on the verge of it. I really do."'
You are conflating value of life with risk of loss of life, and several other concepts as well apparently.
In some senses it is less accurate, in some senses more. It all depends on what you are attempting to measure. But most of the thread is conflating different issues, like value to a company, risk of loss of life, friendship, lifespan, and quality of life, nonexhaustive.