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Whooping cough evolving into a superbug:
Australia needs a new whooping cough vaccine to ensure our most vulnerable are protected from the emergence of superbug strains, new UNSW research has shown.
The current vaccine, widely used since 2000, targets three antigens in the bacteria of the highly contagious respiratory disease which can be fatal to infants.
All babies under six months old -- in particular, newborns not protected by maternal immunisation -- are at risk of catching the vaccine-preventable disease because they are either too young to be vaccinated or have not yet completed the three-dose primary vaccine course.
Australia's whooping cough epidemic from 2008 to 2012 saw more than 140,000 cases -- with a peak of almost 40,000 in 2011 -- and revealed the rise of evolving strains able to evade vaccine-generated immunity.
In a series of UNSW studies, with the latest published today in Vaccine, UNSW researchers took this knowledge further and showed, in a world-first discovery, that the evolving strains made additional changes to better survive in their host, regardless of that person's vaccination status. They also identified new antigens as potential vaccine targets.
First author and microbiologist Dr Laurence Luu, who led the team of researchers with Professor Ruiting Lan, said whooping cough's ability to adapt to vaccines and survival in humans might be the answer to its surprise resurgence despite Australia's high vaccination rates.
"We found the whooping cough strains were evolving to improve their survival, regardless of whether a person was vaccinated or not, by producing more nutrient-binding and transport proteins, and fewer immunogenic proteins which are not targeted by the vaccine," Dr Luu said.
[...] "Put simply, the bacteria that cause whooping cough are becoming better at hiding and better at feeding -- they're morphing into a superbug."
Dr Luu said it was therefore possible for a vaccinated person to contract whooping cough bacteria without symptoms materialising.
Journal Reference:
Laurence Don Wai Luu, Sophie Octavia, Chelsea Aitken, Ling Zhong, Mark J. Raftery, Vitali Sintchenko, Ruiting Lan. Surfaceome analysis of Australian epidemic Bordetella pertussis reveals potential vaccine antigens. Vaccine, 2020; 38 (3): 539 DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.10.062
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:01PM (23 children)
No one mentioned immortality, but I got home from a road trip late last night and woke up congested w a runny nose, so I took 2 g sodium ascorbate and it started clearing up. Then I took 4 more grams and it got even better. Then I added 8 g to a glass, got some osmotic diarrhea (because my body didn't need any more) and all my symptoms all stopped. This probably cost me less than a dime.
Ive had the exact same experience dozens of times.
Your bs debunking studies are for like 500 mg per day max, which is not enough.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @09:27PM (13 children)
It's really simple, this one supplement will solve all your problems [twitter.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:32PM (12 children)
You have a serious problem with arguing against strawmen you crafted yourself instead of other real people.
Also, I doubt you know shit about metabolism, because then you would understand the universal role that reducing agents play when things go wrong for any reason.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @09:34PM (11 children)
Yeah, not like I mentioned long-term oxxidative stress already or anything.
You literally think Vitamin C magically destroys disease. I'm lecturing you because what you believe is dumb.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @09:41PM (10 children)
More strawmen from you.
There is nothing magic about biochemistry, and vitamin c does not "destroy disease" it primarily quenches free radical cascades (which are a very common sequels to almost all disease states) and regenerates intracellular/membrane antioxidants like glutathione and vitamin e.
All you would need to do is measure the vitamin c levels in these sick children to see they are deficient, but you would refuse and prefer to let them suffer and die because their vitamin c got used up. Just to not admit you are wrong.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @10:06PM (9 children)
Where the fuck did you get the idea that "disease states" are some runaway cellular process?
I need to calibrate my expectations, whether you're a germ theory denying psycho or just believe you understand the single mode of operation of all infectious germs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:12PM (8 children)
Lol. Are you even unfamiliar with the process of inflammation? What degree of ignorance am *I* dealing with here?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @10:20PM (7 children)
And we're back to "This one chemical completely mediates an entire complex process" vs "no that's really dumb and shut the fuck up"
1. Inflamation is not entirely caused by oxidation via free radicals.
2. It's not even predominantly caused by oxidation.
3. It's not even notably frequently caused by oxidation via free radicals.
4. It's not even frequently caused by intracellular processes at all
5. It is often a healthy response to immune signaling.
Hell, vitamin C isn't even the most relevant vitamin to the process of inflammation, because granulocytes need Vitamin A for healthy development.
I'm hoping we've finally reached the bottom layer of your fractal wrongness and actually start talking about our genuine differences in understanding(where I'm mostly right and you're entirely wrong, btw). What do you think inflammation is?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:35PM (6 children)
More strawmen and wrong info from you. No one said inflammation is caused by free radicals, your post goes downhill from there.
Here's some basic info to get you up to speed:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3614697/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC297842/ [nih.gov]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000398618371074X [sciencedirect.com]
You are one of the most biomedically ignorant people I have ever come across. It is truly amazing what your training has managed to do.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @10:50PM (5 children)
No, those papers don't say what you say.
No, you're wrong about everything
No, just please, shut up.
No, that's not what fucking strawman means
No, none of this supports your insane beliefs about disease.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:04PM (4 children)
Those papers pretty much do say what I said here, but are indeed not what the strawman you made up says.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 20 2020, @11:13PM (3 children)
No, they really goddamn don't. "Diseased state" is a non-concept. A fiction. A fantabulation of a diseased mind. And I don't know why I care that you don't get that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:21PM
As I said, it is difficult to imagine someone more ignorant about biomedical topics than you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @05:51AM (1 child)
Would not a diseased mind be in a "Diseased state"? LOL at internal contradictions.
Regardless of that; the AC may be talking a lot of crap, but he is not wrong when he accuses you of strawmanning.
Vitamin C may not be a panacea, but all he is claiming is that it's anti-free radical properties reduce inflammation and reduce secondary damage from immune system reactions. That is not an unreasonable claim, and probably should be investigated properly. It won't be, because nobody can get a patent on vitamin C.
I read some of his links from a previous argument on this, and there were interesting beneficial effects from large dose injections, that were not replicated by pill studies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @07:12AM
Ikanread claims to be a cancer genomics researcher... But had never heard of the armitage-doll model of carcinogenesis and even said they could not understand it.
Here we see they have obviously never heard of the term "disease state", so my guess is they are a python dev lab tech with no training in (and seemingly no awareness of) biochem, cell bio, epidemology, etc. They also seem to be proud of making things seem as complicated as possible rather than act like a scientist and attempt to distill phenomena down to general "laws".
Btw, the IV vitamin C is still not ideal because it is excreted so quickly (after a few hours). Better would be a pump that attempts to maintain a given blood level, eg like described here: https://riordanclinic.org/journal-article-archive/continuous-intravenous-vitamin-c-in-the-cancer-treatment-reevaluation-of-a-phase-i-clinical-study/ [riordanclinic.org]
They amazingly find that infusing 20g of sodium ascorbate over 20-22 hrs per day for a month is almost completely safe. It's interesting to think about why exactly the body normally keeps levels so low (peak of ~250 uM and "steady state" of ~80 uM in healthy people) if there is no harm of constant 1 mM concentration for a month. Perhaps it is to maintain a certain amount of ferric (3+) iron in the blood? What exactly is the tradeoff here?
Also, there have been some tantalizing hints that the kinetics of oral ascorbic acid are different from sodium ascorbate. Presumably it can be absorbed faster via the stomach (vs the intestine) if the pH is right because it is uncharged and lead to blood concentrations in the mM range for like 20 min. All the kinetics studies I saw used "buffered" ascorbate, ie sodium ascorbate, and/or did not collect data so early.
Finally, I've come to the conclusion the best way to overcome the ridiculous resistance to vitamin C is simply get it to be on a standard lab test. I've yet to see a report of anyone with an illness who did not have below average levels, even according to the "official" very low expectations (~22 uM).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:01PM (8 children)
14 grams of sodium ascorbate is 1554 mg of sodium and 12.5 grams of ascorbate acid. That is practically guaranteed to give you diarrhea, as the UL is on 2 grams. And it is no surprise you had overnight nasal congestion. The stress of travel, combined with unusual head positioning, air quality, possible pathogens, etc. will do that. There is a good chance it would have gone away on its own once you were in an upright position. Not to mention the sudden influx of sodium in your blood is going to slow any rhinorrhea that is exacerbating your congestion. Plus pharmacokinetic studies show that that much sodium ascorbate does not increase non-mean-peak-plasma levels beyond taking 110mg and mean-peak-plasma levels are much less sensitive to dietary intake at levels above 300mg. In fact, studies show that the total amount of ascorbate acid in the body is likely fixed and that taking too much beyond the recommended level provides no benefit but increases the chance of urolithiasis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:07PM (4 children)
Why don't you cite these pharmacokinetic studies? Eg, Levine 1996 where they studied *healthy* (ie, not sick) people?
There are other issues but you can start your journey to enlightenment with that fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @10:40PM (3 children)
I am already aware of
which is what I assume you are talking about. Note that that even recommends levels (200 mg from all sources, with 400 mg maximum benefit level at any population) far below what is being suggested. But
and
are the ones I was referencing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:06PM (2 children)
And do those papers report ascorbate pharmacokinetics in anyone who is ill? That is rhetorical.. Do the challenge I put to ikanread above, find one paper where they report vitamin c levels in sick patients where they are not depleted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:36PM (1 child)
Coulter I, Hardy M, Shekelle P, Udani J, Spar M, Oda K, et al. Effect of the supplemental use of antioxidants vitamin C, vitamin E, and coenzyme Q10 for the prevention and treatment of cancer. Evidence Report/Technology Assessment Number 75. AHRQ Publication No. 04-E003. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2003.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:42PM
Please quote the part you are referring to. I see no report of ascorbate pharmacokinetics in ill patients.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 21 2020, @02:53AM (1 child)
That's because at high doses, vit.c can suck calcium out of your bones, which then winds up deposited in the kidneys.
For a while dosing puppies with mega-vit-c was a fad, in the name of 'preventing' hip dysplasia (an inherited disorder). In some cases you could actually see the effects as swelling in the long bones. (Went away once the dosage was reduced to something rational. Unless it had gone on long enough for the bones to soften and basically imitate rickets.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:22AM
Amazing how you find a couple case reports of kidney stones (oxalate, having nothing to do with calcium...) in 50 years to be conclusively proven but the hundreds of thousands to millions of people reporting benefits to be questionable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:59AM
This is the only data I was able to find on bowel tolerance doses: https://i.ibb.co/3MxX81T/jaffe2.png [i.ibb.co]