from the cough-cough-great-idea-cough-cough dept.
Despite push for a universal flu vaccine, the 'holy grail' stays out of reach
It is the holy grail of influenza science: a universal flu vaccine that could provide protection against virtually all strains instead of a select few. A burst of recent headlines have suggested that we might get one soon. Just last week, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases released a strategic plan for the development of a universal flu vaccine, prompting the White House science office to proclaim on Twitter that the goal is "closer than ever."
Experts, however, say we're really not there yet. And to be honest, we can't necessarily even see there from here. "I don't think we're that close at all," Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy. "I think the kind of work that's gone on has been critical and important, but it's only the first 5 feet of what would need to be a 100-foot rope."
There's no doubt that there is some momentum. The release of the strategic plan — which outlines for scientists the research that NIAID sees as critical and that it would be willing to help finance — signals renewed interest in the quest for a universal vaccine. So, too, does a bill — introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts — calling for $1 billion in government spending for the project.
Previously: Progress Reported on Universal Flu Vaccines
Related: Susceptibility to a Flu Determined by Your Very First Virus Encounter
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Two separate U.S. teams have reportedly made progress on creating a universal influenza vaccine, according to the BBC:
Researchers say they are closer to developing a vaccine to give life-long protection against any type of flu, after promising trials in animals. Two separate US teams have found success with an approach that homes in on a stable part of the flu virus. That should remove the problem with current flu vaccines which must be given anew each year because they focus on the mutating part of the virus.
The proof-of-concept work is published in Science journal and Nature Medicine [both paywalled]. Studies are now needed in humans to confirm that the method will work in man.
Apparently influenza A flus come in two main varieties, the H1 and the H7. When you had your first flu when you were young you got good defenses against that subfamily according to researchers from the University of Arizona and UCLA. This explains why sometimes old and sick people can weather an influenza better than young and healthy people. This insight might have important implications in case of a pandemic.
The research team studied two avian-origin influenza A ("bird flu") viruses, H5N1 and H7N9, each of which already has caused hundreds of spillover cases of severe illness or death in humans. Both strains are of global concern because they might at some point gain mutations that allow them not only to readily jump from birds into humans, but also spread rapidly between human hosts.
Analyzing data from every known case of severe illness or death from influenza caused by these two strains, the researchers discovered that whichever human influenza strain a person happened to be exposed to during his or her first infection with flu virus as a child determines which novel, avian-origin flu strains they would be protected against in a future infection. This effect of "immunological imprinting" appears to be exclusively dependent on the very first exposure to flu virus encountered in life — and difficult to reverse.
[...] In their latest paper, Worobey and co-authors not only show that there is a 75 percent protection rate against severe disease and 80 percent protection rate against death if patients had been exposed to a matched virus as children, but also that one can take that information and make predictions about H5N1, H7N9 and other potential causes of future pandemics.
"If either of these viruses were to successfully jump from birds into humans, we now know something about the age groups that they would be hit the hardest," Worobey said, adding that efforts to develop a universal flu vaccine hinge on such insights because "such a vaccine would likely target the same conserved protein motifs on the virus surface that underlie this age-specific pattern."
https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/birth-year-predicts-odds-if-flu-pandemic-were-strike
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 09 2018, @01:56AM (2 children)
I'm not saying all vaccines are bullshit, but the flu vaccines most certainly are. You might have got one for free, but somebody paid the manufacturer to procure it.
Take a look around you, man. You see those same people bragging about getting their vaccines getting sick more than the people who didn't. Donald Trump knows this. He knows that Barron has autism and got that autism through vaccination. Trump will drain that swamp after he reunifies the Koreas and makes it possible for uneducated-but-hard-working Americans to own homes and raise families.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @02:30AM (1 child)
I think I might have contracted a short bout of Autism after a vaccination one time. I'm ok now, but Jesus I screamed like a banshee when that needle went in, then I passed out. Woke up a few seconds later and I was fully Autistic I tell you. Lasted a couple of hours that Autism did. I was a lucky one, I've heard some people have symptoms that last for a lifetime.
Yours truly,
Jimbob
Anti-vaxxer Extraordinaire
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 09 2018, @02:55AM
Ahh, Lenny aka Jimbob, you're still alive. I almost forgot about your story. And I can't pander to this crowd unless I have some real-life inspiration. Unfortunately what you did was so heinous that I'm going to have to sit back and think whether or not these folks should hear it. Nobody was harmed, no property was damaged (though it was technically a property crime committed by you and not I), but what you did was so insidious in a harmless-but-niche manner that many nerds, even the Jews among them, would consider it worse than gassing Jews.
In case all you nerds are kneading your dicks in anticipation, This is not about getting drunk and peeing on a Prius. This is not about physically hurting somebody, or damaging property, or hacking the NSA. I'm still going to have to recoil back on my haunches and figure out how much of that this crowd needs to hear.
But since it's been built up so much now, the actual journal will be anticlimactic. Everybody who just read this, ignore it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday March 09 2018, @10:22AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Friday March 09 2018, @03:16PM
First you develop the universal flu, then you will be able to develop the universal flu vaccine, duh.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:12PM
unless you have a specific health situation you're a special kind of dumb ass to get a flu shot. "please shoot me up with unknown bio trash, viruses and chemicals because i might (i likely won't. i almost never do) get the flu". what stupid sheep.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday March 09 2018, @06:35PM
The thing is, when you don't know what the key will look like, you don't know how to properly look for it. It can get a bit discouraging. But if some crucial discovery is made it's likely to become obvious that it's been right in front of you all along.
Well, of course that's a wildly oversimplified metaphor, but they're looking at various portions of the structure of the flu, and trying to find a piece that is invariant, and that can simulate the immune system to attack it, and which can be detected by the immune system. Right now they don't know what part that is, or how to properly stimulate the immune system. But once some crucial discovery is made it will become clear what the next steps should be. And nobody can really predict what that "some crucial discovery" is. So people who want to plan things out in detail get very pessimistic...and maybe they're right, but often they aren't. And, of course, it could just be impossible, but I see no reason to believe that.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Entropy on Saturday March 10 2018, @12:51AM (2 children)
A flu vaccine that would actually work. Rather than the mismanaged mcflu meal given to everyone to enrich corporate pockets. There's a reason medical professions were refusing in droves to take the flu vaccine: It doesn't work, and often contains mercury. Many vaccines are awesome, the flu vaccine is a hoax.
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/nurses-across-the-u-s-are-taking-a-stand-against-forced-flu-vaccines/ [healthimpactnews.com]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday March 10 2018, @02:34AM (1 child)
It might help your argument to link to a site that isn't a known promoter of pseudoscience and fake news.
"OMG - Some vaccines contain mercury compounds!!" Newsflash: there's an ingredient probably sitting on your kitchen table that contains a metal that will catch on fire and could even explode when it comes in contact with ordinary water. And the other component is a poisonous gas!!
But wait -- I forgot some people failed chemistry 101 where the individual elements in a compound don't determine its properties. Sodium chloride (table salt) isn't much like sodium or chlorine. And not all mercury compounds are highly toxic.
And even so, if you don't want that tiny amount of mercury compound in your flu vaccine, just get a dose from an individual ampule, which doesn't have the tiny amount of preservative that is, ya know, designed to keep a large batch from becoming contaminated with dangerous bacteria and making people sick.
As for the rest of your argument, yes -- nurses can be stupid too. I know some of them.
And as for effectiveness, it's an H3N2 year, and the egg production method causes mutations that likely lead to less effectiveness for vaccines for that strain (which is itself a highly mutating version).
But hey, why bother with science when you can quote some BS website that's out to scare people. (Also, if you have a conspiracy theory about vaccine companies and making money, I suggest you look into how much money is made by complete quackery companies promoting "natural health" cures, methods, "superfoods," etc. Lots of people are out to make money... Only some base their methods on evidence.)
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Saturday March 10 2018, @06:37AM
At least I had a citation. Having an organo mercury compound(more easily absorbed than metallic mercury) in something you inject is bad. If you're scared of lead based paint, I think it's pretty reasonable to be scared of injecting mercury into your veins. Yeah, it's a quote from wikipedia. If you think organic mercury compounds are good things to inject, be my guest. I don't think comparing them to table salt is fair, though.
Thiomersal is very toxic by inhalation, ingestion, and in contact with skin (EC hazard symbol T+), with a danger of cumulative effects. It is also very toxic to aquatic organisms and may cause long-term adverse effects in aquatic environments (EC hazard symbol N).[20] In the body, it is metabolized or degraded to ethylmercury (C2H5Hg+) and thiosalicylate.[11]
As to how useful the last flu vaccine was it's well known it was nearly useless. I'm just suggesting the entire flu vaccine product is not only useless, but actively harmful and a scam to siphon money into the rich's pockets based on people's fears.