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German company CureVac has received a rather strange offer from the current White House.
On March 3, CureVac's CEO was invited to the White House, for a meeting with President Trump, Vice Pence and several members of the Coronavirus Task Force. Asked for when a vaccine could be ready, he estimated that a potential candidate could be ready within a few months. Apparently, that triggered the members of the meeting so much, that they've now offered to buy the company, at whatever price.
One condition though: production would be exclusively for the United States.
The move is not exactly one to gain popularity, and follows on the heels of the President's worrying statement that "a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @11:12PM (33 children)
As others have pointed out I'm somewhat skeptical. Isn't part of the longer delay due to the necessary testing. So if it's released in a much shorter period of time that means they didn't spend that much time testing it.
Testing how well something like this works takes time no? Testing things like safety and efficacy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @11:23PM (14 children)
(to continue with my last comment)
I would like to hear what the experts have to say about this. From what I was hearing before, as you all already know, the reason that it's going to take so long is because of the testing.
So some company comes up to Trump with a sales pitch and claims that they can do it faster. Obviously they want money but for all I know this could be a scam artist. Trump, not being an expert himself and being someone that doesn't really care what the experts say, just jumps on the opportunity without thinking. He ignores the experts regardless.
So it would be nice to hear what the experts have to say not what Trump believes. Did this company start on the testing earlier than everyone else? How much earlier (how much of a head start could they really have had?). If not how can they prove, with less testing time, that it works and is safe? They need not prove it to Trump (or whatever expert Trump selects since he will just fire any expert that disagrees with him) but the company needs to prove it to independent experts.
I'm not saying it's false. I'm just saying I want to hear what the experts have to say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @11:44PM (1 child)
Trump against his own desire to protect the economy listened to his advisors and shut down travel to Europe. If Fauci's team said they wanted the research, Trump would make it happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @11:50PM
(same poster)
Agreed. Trump did some things right and some things wrong. Early on he did some things wrong (ie: he was slow on getting testing out and approving it) but later on he seemed to get better and actually listen to the experts more.
Reading the links a bit more this doesn't look as bad as I originally thought. But I'm no expert by a long shot FWIW.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @11:47PM (7 children)
(same poster)
OK so I'm going back to actually read the articles this time. It looks like
A: They aren't going to have the vaccine ready for the public in a few months. The vaccine will be ready for testing in humans by June or July. It will probably take longer for the testing to actually complete before the vaccine becomes mass produced and available. This makes more sense.
B: The vaccine has "showed promise in an early-stage rabies trial". So they're trying to use data from a rabies trial to apply to this vaccine?
(Score: 5, Funny) by barbara hudson on Monday March 16 2020, @12:01AM (4 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @12:23AM (2 children)
See comment above by resident AC on the ineffectiveness of vaccine if the patient already has the disease. Trump is already rabid, so a vaccine would not help. Instead he needs a Postexposure prophylaxis, but since he is already symptomatic, and virally shedding madness across the world, the prognosis is not good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @02:48AM (1 child)
Did anyone mention vaccine?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 16 2020, @02:30PM
They cause autism! Avoid!
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday March 16 2020, @07:24AM
Why would you inject him with rabies? Don't you think he's already rabid enough?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday March 16 2020, @01:12AM (1 child)
From what Fauci has said. The vaccine would take a few weeks to months to produce, and that he has no reason to believe that it would not work, but the problem comes when they need to spend a year testing it to make sure its safe in humans. The testing is more to find whether it will kill the people who take it rather than how effective it is.
So if a drug has already been tested and shown to be safe in humans, and it has some cross applicibility for 2019-nCoV then it could be deployed and get some sort of net gain.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @08:07AM
Yes, but to show it is safe takes time. How can they possibly know the long term effects if they only test it for a month?
Honestly even if they just claim it "moderates the disease" and it is a placebo it may help though. A lot of what going on is hysteria.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @12:25AM (3 children)
From one of the articles, a vaccine candidate could be ready within a few months. That means human trials would begin in June or July. It's necessary to understand the safety of the vaccine. Some of the SARS candidate vaccines caused immune hypersensitivity, for example. A vaccine would need to produce an appropriate antibody response and have limited side effects. Assuming that the candidate vaccine is viable, delivery probably wouldn't begin until mid-2021. And that assumes it passes the clinical trails, which is not certain. For that matter, there are conflicting reports about the experimental antiviral remdesivir. Some express optimism while others raise concerns both about efficacy and side effects.
The best options we have now seem to be social distancing, good hygiene, widespread testing, managing symptoms and complications, and the use of supportive treatments like ventilators. There are treatments for managing complications like a cytokine storm. There is a glimmer of optimism in the data, in the rate of new infections in the US [wikipedia.org]. For several days, the rate of new infections was around 40-45% of the previous day's total. More recently, that seems to be closer to 30-35%. Because people tend to not develop serious symptoms for a week or so, that decline is probably the rest of prior measures to control the spread. We will probably see the effects of school closings and bans on mass gatherings lower that rate more in the next week or two. To be clear, 30-35% increases per day is still much too fast, but it's an indication that the control measures are starting to have an effect.
We can't expect a vaccine anytime soon and shouldn't count on existing antivirals to be effective. The good news is that the typical measures for controlling the spread of infectious diseases are effective against this virus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @01:22AM
It's crazy though, if you look at places like Costco you see huge crowds. Wouldn't that be a bad thing? I'm no expert but it looks to me that everyone's attempt to prepare for the problem could be making the problem worse?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @02:00AM
Thanks for your response. I was searching through stuff and I found this interesting (though somewhat off topic).
Basically various labs showed potentially promising results but ultimately
"As of December 2015, research related to DRACOs had ground to a halt due to a lack of funding."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRACO [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday March 16 2020, @03:19AM
The U.S. has no idea what the rate of infection is because there is virtually no testing at large in the country.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Monday March 16 2020, @12:29AM (14 children)
It's worse than that. Yes, they'll have a *candidate*, but what they're building is an mRNA vaccine, and while those are very theoretically interesting, they've got *NO* track record. A few predecessors have failed expensively.
A candidate vaccine isn't a vaccine, and in this case I'd put the odds of success at well under 50%. Of course, that's not my specialty.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday March 16 2020, @12:42AM
I'd put the odds of success at well under 50%. Of course, that's not my specialty.
Betting?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Monday March 16 2020, @03:04AM (9 children)
Well, there's ONE corona vaccine with a track record (and it worked very well), but it's a canine vaccine, and I have no idea how related or relevant it might be... but it too was difficult. See my comment somewhere downstream.
BTW if you know of research that should be pursued or resurrected, comments left on the White House contact form DO get read and passed upstairs:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ [whitehouse.gov]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 16 2020, @12:38PM (8 children)
In the past, things like 7 injections spaced over 3 months were deemed "too difficult."
Now that we're looking at 3 months of school closings - those 7 injections are getting to be less impossible to consider.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 16 2020, @03:42PM (7 children)
True enough. A lot of what was overly difficult in normal times might be perfectly reasonable now... if only because more people will show up for, say, seven injections.
Just saw this:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8115879/COVID-19-Australian-researchers-CURE-coronavirus.html [dailymail.co.uk]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 16 2020, @04:09PM (6 children)
That may, or may not, be a good response to COVID-19... if they can scale up the results, if the results don't start showing high rates of undesirable side effects - including long term side effects that may not manifest for a number of years...
A 2-3% "culling of the herd" by influenza is unfortunate, but natural. Injection of billions of people with relatively untested complex anti-viral research could cause unpleasantness on a hitherto unseen scale.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 16 2020, @04:42PM (5 children)
True all around. But I think they're looking at this as a treatment for those already in severe respiratory distress, under the theory that at this stage you try anything even vaguely promising, because the alternative is death.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 16 2020, @05:54PM (4 children)
If it's got a chance of improving people who are "on the verge" then, sure, by all means - when you're in 50/50 territory with the best available treatments, try anything that seems like it might help.
I'm more familiar with the vaccines that need to be administered either before infection, or before the infection has taken hold.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @06:18PM (2 children)
Sometimes regulations even get in the way of people trying something when it makes sense for them to try it. IIRC, the FDA prevented cancer patients that were declared terminal from even trying DCA. IIRC, it's because there were too many side effects involved? Really, a side effect worse than death? Well, apparently Trump did something about this.
"Trump signs Right to Try Act for terminally ill patients"
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44305998 [bbc.com]
I found this comment interesting (not sure I believe it though, take with a grain of salt).
"I spoke to Prof. Michelakis this week and just finished doing a story about DCA.The team from the University of Alberta are in Phase 2 with their trials testing it now on more brain cancer sufferers as well as lung and breast cancer patients.
So they tested it on only 49 patients since 2008 – and ALL 49 were healed. And the five terminally ill ones who had at best a year from the worst cancer a human can get? The tumors either shrunk or stopped growing within three months.
I’m sorry. That for me spells a cure: plain and simple. And obviously inexpensive…
Forgive me for being cynical, but money does talk"
https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2010/05/12/potential-cancer-drug-dca-tested-in-early-trials/ [cancerresearchuk.org]
but really if I want to try something to treat a condition that I have I feel like the FDA should just get out of my way regardless. I don't think the government should try and tell me what's best for me, it should be left for me to decide.
From the above link
"Advocacy groups including the American Cancer Society had opposed the bill."
An advocacy group that prevents me from determining what I think is in my best interests against MY WILL is not one that has my interests in mind. My freedoms to determine what treatments I want to try on MYSELF >>>>> your freedoms to prevent me from doing so. People don't tell me I can't smoke (I don't smoke), drink alcohol (I don't do that either), etc...
https://uncommondescent.com/off-topic/dca-update-big-pharmaglacial-rate-of-progress/ [uncommondescent.com]
https://uncommondescent.com/biology/dca-update-ii/ [uncommondescent.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 16 2020, @07:31PM (1 child)
A lot of the medical establishment is primarily concerned with perpetuating the status quo, after all - the status quo is VERY profitable for the people who support the establishment organizations.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2020, @08:43PM
(Sorry, off topic)
It's also interesting that the FDA banned red yeast rice with more than trace amounts of naturally occurring lovastatin probably to protect the companies that sell lovastatin despite the studies that shows it's safer and more effective than many of the drugs out there at treating cholesterol (well, IIRC, there was one study that looked like it was intentionally designed to show the opposite where they gave the mice ridiculous amounts of red yeast rice with ridiculous concentrations of lovastatin but too much water is bad for you too).
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 16 2020, @06:25PM
Sometimes it's worth going off the beaten track. A vet of my acquaintance came up with a stellar treatment for canine distemper (and I've actually seen it work) ... using of all things, Newcastle vaccine for chickens.
https://edbond.com/distemper/ [edbond.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @04:25AM (2 children)
So I tried reading more about this and I found this interesting
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-vaccine-trial-no-animal-testing.html [livescience.com]
I'll have to spend more time reading about mRNA vaccines. Do you have any suggested studies that indicates how effective they are?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @04:52AM (1 child)
OK so I began reading part of this article, I will try to read more later, but it does mention some of the difficulties that these types of vaccines used to have and some of the progress that was made towards making them more effective than before.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446947/ [nih.gov]
These still seem to be rather new so perhaps more testing is still needed but it looks like there has been improvements.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @06:23PM
Though, come to think of it more, I would think a Recombinant vaccine might be better. It seems like it would be difficult to control/predict how much protein would be produced from inserting RNA into the body and expecting the cells to make proteins from it vs just inserting a controlled amount of protein into the body to begin with (but I'm no expert, just guessing).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Monday March 16 2020, @02:57AM (2 children)
Coronavirus vaccines have proven difficult in the past. From what I've heard, human trials of existing efforts have been a mixed bag -- some protection, some worse-than-no-protection (people lose all immunity and get sicker than before), so you really want to get this one right before dosing the public en masse.
Condensed version of one whose history I'm familiar with: Back in the 1980s, Cornell University developed a modified live vaccine for canine coronavirus (at the time significant because tho canine corona is merely a nuisance in young puppies, it acts as a gateway for parvovirus, then with a 90% mortality rate and not very good vaccine). Unfortunately they gave the rights to a company that a few years later went under due to business incompetence, and the vaccine disappeared from the market; attempts to recreate it failed. Since then a killed vaccine has been developed, but the efficacy is so-so (fortunately we now have very good parvo vaccine, so corona vaccine for dogs is kinda irrelevant).
BTW bad vaccine being worse than no vaccine is not unknown; it can happen with canine distemper (this is why you don't use stale vaccine, or half-dose it -- it can set the immune system to a state where it can't generate antibodies to the real thing).
.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @04:08AM (1 child)
"it can set the immune system to a state where it can't generate antibodies to the real thing"
Are there any citations to this?
(Score: 4, Informative) by hemocyanin on Monday March 16 2020, @05:02AM
I linked to an interview below where this is discussed. It's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement [wikipedia.org]
Osterholm mentioned ADE caused a recall for dengue fever vaccine recently. Anyway, here's an article entitled "Too much or too little—better than some". Honestly it is beyond me, but here's a link: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6365/929.full [sciencemag.org]
This appears to be the specific dengue fever vaccine recalled because of the ADE effect: http://www.virology.ws/2017/12/07/a-problem-with-dengue-virus-vaccine/ [virology.ws]