Thread: COVID19 vaccine announcement is promising news

The announcement today by Pfizer of their vaccine having a 90% success rate is good news indeed. There are more steps till it becomes available but according to Dr. Anthony Fauci in interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, it could be in use before the end of 2020. Because I know little about vaccines I'll stop here, except to say that the potential for saving of lives is breathtaking.

Originally Posted by Roger Knox

The announcement today by Pfizer of their vaccine having a 90% success rate is good news indeed. There are more steps till it becomes available but according to Dr. Anthony Fauci in interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, it could be in use before the end of 2020. Because I know little about vaccines I'll stop here, except to say that the potential for saving of lives is breathtaking.

If you know little about vaccines, how do you conclude that the potential for saving lives is breathtaking? Perhaps you meant the "presumed" potential?

^ Can you bring any specific examples of such vaccines developed in the US or Europe, which were knowingly undertested? I recall that Pandremix increased the likelihood of developing narcolepsy but it was a huge scandal and certainly not something that was overly profitable. A vaccine causing a huge number of severe side-effects would not be profitable because it simply wouldn’t be used and the work and clinical trials are controlled and regulated very strictly. That’s what FDA and the lot are for. Sure, there can be severe side effects but they are usually very rare. Bioethics are very strictly controlled and that’s the reason why developing a vaccine that is meant for a very wide usage takes years. Even if the possibility to develop a severe side effect is 0.1%, it would mean that 1000 out of 1 000 000 would experience that. 1 000 000 vaccinations itself is a severe understatement when we talk about the potential number of people who would get a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. That’s the reason why the likelihood to develop side-effects is minimised. Also, a vaccine developed in the US or Europe, where the development seems to have been very well controlled, will probably put into danger significantly less people than the virus itself. If we don’t trust that industry, why do we trust any other medical industries?

Here’s a Nature News and Comments article about the vaccine as well: https://www.nature.com/articles/d415...0vL6fZousF1qHs

The bottom line is that the vaccine has only been under test for a few months. They only have information about the short term effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. When they say they will give the vaccine candidate to hundreds of millions of people they are, in effect, announcing the largest vaccine trial in history. The vaccine might work, it might wear off in a few months, it might kill people.

This is not a traditional vaccine, it is an mRNA vaccine. It depends on the vaccine recipient to manufacturer the actual vaccine in his or her cells. It seems to me the potential for problems is greater than for a traditional vaccine.

I'm not inclined to get it until it has been around for a few years.

Originally Posted by Baron Scarpia

The bottom line is that the vaccine has only been under test for a few months. They only have information about the short term effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. When they say they will give the vaccine candidate to hundreds of millions of people they are, in effect, announcing the largest vaccine trial in history. The vaccine might work, it might wear off in a few months, it might kill people.

This is not a traditional vaccine, it is an mRNA vaccine. It depends on the vaccine recipient to manufacturer the actual vaccine in his or her cells. It seems to me the potential for problems is greater than for a traditional vaccine.

I'm not inclined to get it until it has been around for a few years.

In fact, safety is considered to be one of the advantages of mRNA vaccines:

First, safety: as mRNA is a non-infectious, non-integrating platform, there is no potential risk of infection or insertional mutagenesis. Additionally, mRNA is degraded by normal cellular processes, and its in vivo half-life can be regulated through the use of various modifications and delivery method. The inherent immunogenicity of the mRNA can be down-modulated to further increase the safety profile. - Nature

But of course, I think we'll know more once the trials are over. mRNA vaccines are very elegant and intriguing, I must say .

Originally Posted by annaw

In fact, safety is considered to be one of the advantages of mRNA vaccines:

First, safety: as mRNA is a non-infectious, non-integrating platform, there is no potential risk of infection or insertional mutagenesis. Additionally, mRNA is degraded by normal cellular processes, and its in vivo half-life can be regulated through the use of various modifications and delivery method. The inherent immunogenicity of the mRNA can be down-modulated to further increase the safety profile. - Nature

But of course, I think we'll know more once the trials are over. mRNA vaccines are very elegant and intriguing, I must say .

It is believed to be safe. It could do something that they didn't design it to do, especially if they give it to hundreds of millions of people. Early attempts at gene therapy tended to kill the patient because the genetic sequence that was supposed to incorporated in one place went somewhere else.

Maybe it will work just fine. It might be wise to effectively enroll the entire world population in a vaccine trial, given the nature of the threat.

I think the most likely failure mode is that the immunity it confers is short lived. We'll find out in a few years.

As a cautionary tale, there Robert Redfield, the current director of the CDC. He was behind an HIV vaccine that supposedly showed promising early results, but which was eventually found to be ineffective. Things often go that way in biomedical research.

I wanted to mention a few things - and point to an article I found on Forbes. I looked into this - and I am somewhat flummoxed by this vaccine at several levels. It was interesting enough to post -so this is a little long...

'Immunity' may be short-lived - it has been said by some that vaccines may be needed a few times a year. Apparently like the 'seasonal' flu, this mutates. The regular flu vaccine is annual and has a low efficacy rate. From the CDC website:

Screen-Shot-2020-11-10-at-11-21-00-AM.png

As has been already mentioned here - vaccines are big profits for drug companies, investors and the government (the FDA, for example, gets paid by the drug maker to fast-track a drug). Congress also benefits. Each drug company as at least 6 lobbyists to each member of congress and senator. In the 1980s the government protected pharma companies from lawsuits from people who had been injured or killed by vaccines. The govt did create National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program - where it is in actuality very difficult for people to find financial compensation. So, drug companies cannot be sued. Vaccines are a big business and makers have no accountability when people get hurt.

Moderna - which has been working with Pfizer - may provide the delivery system utilizes mRNA, as others have mentioned. This is kind of creepy as an injectable delivered using mRNA alters the existing genome. The federal government (all of us) paid moderna about $1B for this.

From the article, "For a decade, Moderna has been working to develop mRNA technology that could turn the body’s cells into drug factories. In order for the approach to work, Moderna needs to safely deliver the mRNA to the body’s cells without the payload breaking down in the bloodstream. As a result, any mRNA vaccine or therapeutic consists of two components, the actual sequence mRNA and the delivery mechanism. Moderna has clearly engineered the first component, but there remain questions about the second. No mRNA vaccine or medicine has ever been approved by U.S. or European regulators."

The article in Forbes focuses mostly on intellectual property.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanv...h=7206d53762d9

Also puzzling is that there has not been one for SARs or MERS or TB. Speaking of TB, some bright person asked why we haven't been wearing masks for TB and there are well over 1M cases a year.

That we are on the verge of a vaccine in only a few months (when vaccines take years to develop and test - and may or may not be effective or safe). I was curious to see how long some vaccines took to develop to get perspective.
From Business Insider (link below) is an excerpt about smallpox:

Smallpox: "In 1935, a vaccination was attempted, first on monkeys and then on children in California. Though this vaccine yielded poor results, two more decades of research paved the way for the development of vaccines by Jonas Salk in 1953, and Albert Sabin in 1956.

After a trial of more than 1.6 million children, Salk's vaccine was adopted in the US by 1955."

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...ry-2020-7?op=1

Originally Posted by Caroline

Also puzzling is that there has not been one for SARs or MERS or TB. Speaking of TB, some bright person asked why we haven't been wearing masks for TB and there are well over 1M cases a year.

TB isn't a great comparison, since it is a bacteria rather than a virus and can be cured with antibiotics (which can be difficult for drug related strains). Covid-19 is much more contagious than TB. As far as SARS and MERS, they were working on vaccines, but the outbreaks were totally contained before vaccines were ready for testing.

Originally Posted by Baron Scarpia

TB isn't a great comparison, since it is a bacteria rather than a virus and can be cured with antibiotics (which can be difficult for drug related strains). Covid-19 is much more contagious than TB. As far as SARS and MERS, they were working on vaccines, but the outbreaks were totally contained before vaccines were ready for testing.

As the emergency of SARS waned - the funding dried up. TB, while a bacteria, is highly contagious - I don't know if it is less so than covid-19. TB can incubate for 2-12 weeks so one can unknowingly affect a lot of people.

Should clarify worldwide rates for TB - there are 1.5M deaths annually and about 11M cases.

Originally Posted by Caroline

I wanted to mention a few things - and point to an article I found on Forbes. I looked into this - and I am somewhat flummoxed by this vaccine at several levels. It was interesting enough to post -so this is a little long...

'Immunity' may be short-lived - it has been said by some that vaccines may be needed a few times a year. Apparently like the 'seasonal' flu, this mutates. The regular flu vaccine is annual and has a low efficacy rate. From the CDC website:

Screen-Shot-2020-11-10-at-11-21-00-AM.png

Your body's natural immunity might be short lived as well, even if you get a real infection. That's a matter of concern with coronavirus in general.

As has been already mentioned here - vaccines are big profits for drug companies, investors and the government (the FDA, for example, gets paid by the drug maker to fast-track a drug). Congress also benefits. Each drug company as at least 6 lobbyists to each member of congress and senator. In the 1980s the government protected pharma companies from lawsuits from people who had been injured or killed by vaccines. The govt did create National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program - where it is in actuality very difficult for people to find financial compensation. So, drug companies cannot be sued. Vaccines are a big business and makers have no accountability when people get hurt.

This vaccine is such a global thing that I doubt it's controlled by only the US. Our healthcare systems in Europe are rather advanced as well and the vaccine in question has been developed in collaboration with Germans. Countries won't just blindly accept whatever vaccine is developed.

Moderna - which has been working with Pfizer - may provide the delivery system utilizes mRNA, as others have mentioned. This is kind of creepy as an injectable delivered using mRNA alters the existing genome. The federal government (all of us) paid moderna about $1B for this.

From the article, "For a decade, Moderna has been working to develop mRNA technology that could turn the body’s cells into drug factories. In order for the approach to work, Moderna needs to safely deliver the mRNA to the body’s cells without the payload breaking down in the bloodstream. As a result, any mRNA vaccine or therapeutic consists of two components, the actual sequence mRNA and the delivery mechanism. Moderna has clearly engineered the first component, but there remain questions about the second. No mRNA vaccine or medicine has ever been approved by U.S. or European regulators."

That we are on the verge of a vaccine in only a few months (when vaccines take years to develop and test - and may or may not be effective or safe). I was curious to see how long some vaccines took to develop to get perspective.
From Business Insider (link below) is an excerpt about smallpox:

Smallpox: "In 1935, a vaccination was attempted, first on monkeys and then on children in California. Though this vaccine yielded poor results, two more decades of research paved the way for the development of vaccines by Jonas Salk in 1953, and Albert Sabin in 1956.

After a trial of more than 1.6 million children, Salk's vaccine was adopted in the US by 1955."

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...ry-2020-7?op=1

Originally Posted by annaw

In fact, safety is considered to be one of the advantages of mRNA vaccines:

First, safety: as mRNA is a non-infectious, non-integrating platform, there is no potential risk of infection or insertional mutagenesis. Additionally, mRNA is degraded by normal cellular processes, and its in vivo half-life can be regulated through the use of various modifications and delivery method. The inherent immunogenicity of the mRNA can be down-modulated to further increase the safety profile. - Nature

But of course, I think we'll know more once the trials are over. mRNA vaccines are very elegant and intriguing, I must say .

Read the article I quote in my earlier response. mRNA is not added to human genome. That's not how mRNA works. Human cells have no reverse transcriptase that could produce DNA from mRNA - that's possible for retroviruses, such as HIV, but not for humans. As in the article I cited: "there is no potential risk of infection or insertional mutagenesis" - that's exactly what the sentence means. The mRNA vaccines have been around for only a few years and the fact that none of them have been accepted only proves that our healthcare systems and bioethics are controlled. Think how many people have died because of COVID-19 - young children, also healthy teenagers and adults, mothers, fathers, grandparents, wives, husbands - we don't have 20 years to wait and our methods are a lot more advanced than in the mid-20th century. When the pandemic started, Italians didn't even have time to bury their close people because so many had died.

I just believe that the harm the virus has done is significantly greater than the harm a vaccine, produced through strictly controlled process, could possibly do.

I don't wish to start an argument or anything. It simply needed to be said that while mRNA might sound somewhat "dangerous" it's actually thought to be less dangerous, at least in some respects, exactly for the reason that it cannot get randomly included in your genome because your own cells don't have the means for that.