Hm. In the WDKS department, how good are the defenses of an immune system that’s been temporarily boosted by an antibody cocktail to fight off C19? If Regeneron was doing the heavy lifting, his own immunity might not last long.
“… our studies may be paused if an unexpected serious adverse event (SAE) that might be related to a vaccine.”
If an event … WHAT?!?
I wonder which passive, innocent looking verb would have been called into action there if they had the grammatical wit to notice it did actually need a verb?
Arose? Took place? Occurred? Manifested?
I suspect they’d have gone for ‘was observed’.
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No data on that specific cocktail, but general rule is that passive immunity lasts 3-4 weeks max. Given some of the weirdness of the immune responses reported to this bug, I suspect this may not be fully applicable, however. YMMV.
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Don’t forget the steroids.
Oh, not for him, but so he can #OwnTheLibs
Ultra low freezers that are about the size of regular reach in freezers are common. Almost all hospitals have one or more. Granted,It would probably require injection sites rather than doctors offices, but it is very doable. Think of the drive up Covid testing sites with tents and a bunch of these freezers. The only requirement is power. They could be set up in Pharmacy parking lots
I used to repair these freezers and they are not uncommon. Plasma freezers are usually-30 C and there are tons of those around. They are not even extremely expensive, figure around $10,000 or so. They are not hard to make (like ventilators) since they are not medical devices and do not need certifications. Hopefully they are stocking up on these already.
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It wouldn’t be that hard to tool it up in the developed world. I’ve occasionally done work with fine chemicals with that kind of storage temperature, or frozen path sectiions, or GeLi detectors, or whatever. (I’m a computer engineer with a seriously weird gig at a research lab.) They can go in an ordinary semitrailer in a thick-walled Styrofoam cooler over dry ice. Styrofoam and dry ice are available pretty much throughout the developed world - dry ice is basically a waste product of production of welding gases.
Getting the stuff out into the boonies -that’ll be where the real challenge starts!
I seem to recall that he’s claimed not only that there is already a vaccine, but that he’s taken it (and the claim was after his diagnosis with COVID-19, so I’m not sure whether it was supposed to have been ineffective, or unnecessary, or whether he thinks vaccines cure disease).
Is there a hospital around, anywhere in the developed world, that doesn’t have a bucketDewar of liquid nitrogen available? How do the pathologists do frozen sections for cancer surgery without it? (LN2 boils off at 77 K.)
Yes, this is why we have Phase 3.
My real worry is antibody-dependent enhancement like what we saw with RSV, dengue and Zika. (And the first two didn’t turn up until Phase 4, horrifyingly.)
In the long run (20 years, maybe?) I’m betting that we’ll have a much better theory of mucosal immunity, and be able to immunize against airborne diseases using intraoral or intranasal vaccines with tailored peptides to match specific epitopes. What’s really needed for that to happen is some basic science - we don’t know how to test for mucosal immunity, so Phase 1 trials are pretty near impossible to design.
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Yeah, more WDKS. With all the money and time being thrown at this, I am betting that in a few years time we will have a stunningly more complete picture of virus / immune system interactions that are applicable to a multitude of illnesses, including some autoimmune sorts. But that is for the future. We have to get through the present to get there!
Vaccines? Didn’t he suggest to shoot up with bleach?
I think the issue is there is an implied assumption I’m American. I’m not.
Furthermore, not all phase 3 have been American. (Unless these are the only ones you’ve heard of. Maybe?) For example one of them is from Oxford UK. Where Trump has zero influence on vaccine production.
Which is why I thought it was non-sequitur. It didn’t mesh with all the other scientists in the world that are also doing trials. QLD University Australia also has one that is now doing phase 3 I believe.
And there is not a vaccine company in the Western world who will shorten the duration even if Trump demands it.
Why? Because COVID is worldwide. And the drug manufacturers know it. And if someone takes a shortcut, many MANY countries will then not approve the vaccine for distribution. US is not the only place that does drug testing and approvals. If the vaccine got rushed because Trump demanded it, it’ll be like Russia and their vaccine. How’s that vaccine doing? We’ve heard nothing. They’re still getting cases. If it worked, Russia would have been crowing about it. It was rushed. Rest of world rejected.
If J&J tries to rush, then the rest of the world will reject. Trump has zero influence here.
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