vaccines
sa smith | March 27, 2012The technology we have available to us today in the lab is both a boon and a bafflement. Example: The screens we have for RNA expression in cells is so sensitive we can see tiny changes in RNA expression levels in healthy/diseased/drug treated/etc cells. YAY! More information! More observations! More new ideas for research!... Except, the screens we have for RNA expression in cells is so sensitive, we can see tiny changes in RNA expression levels that dont really mean anything.
Example: The techniques we have for identifying viral RNA/DNA in cells is so sensitive... that we can pick up…
sa smith | March 26, 2012The Oklahoman just had a really interesting article up on polio support groups in Oklahoma City:
Oklahoma City polio support group helps residents understand disease
I freely admit to forgetting the real-world side of my research, at times. Especially for diseases like polio, which have been eradicated in my country since before I was born-- my study/interest in them is purely academic. Its not 'real' anymore-- its a very interesting chapter in a history book.
This article was enlightening. Polio is not just something that happened long ago in a galaxy far, far away. There are people who…
milhayser | March 19, 2012
We've all heard of bird and swine flu, but bats, which comprise "about a fifth of all known mammalian species," also carry a diverse host of viruses. By swabbing the rectums of little yellow-shouldered bats, researchers in Guatemala discovered a new influenza virus that defies easy classification. Flu viruses are described by two key genes—hence the name 'H1N1.' Tara C. Smith writes "The novel bat virus was a completely new H type—type 17 (provisional, they note, pending further analyses). The NA gene was also highly divergent." Smith continues "the authors did do some molecular work…
sa smith | March 7, 2012One month after some grossly irresponsible parents let their measles-infested offspring roam about the Super Bowl festivities, here is the end result:
16 cases of measles
I dont know about the last three, but the first 13 were unvaccinated:
According to Larkin, the first 13 individuals infected had all chosen not to be vaccinated.
Im sorry, but that statement doesnt jive with this one:
State health officials have reported a total of 13 confirmed cases of measles in Central Indiana, involving children and adults.
Children cannot 'choose' not to be vaccinated. If they could, the vaccine rate…
sa smith | February 27, 2012Sometimes, people do not respond well to vaccines.
What I mean by that, is that sometimes a person will not generate a protective immune response to a particular vaccine on a given day... the whole point of vaccination.
Now that person might respond (and have responded) just fine to other vaccines. Or they might respond to that exact same vaccine just fine on another day. Or they might get that same vaccine several times, and never generate a protective response.
We do not know why this happens, thus we cannot predict who will or will not respond well. And then we dont know who responded…
kbonham | February 24, 2012Cool:
During the tests, mice were given access to deposits of heroin over an extended period of time. Those given the vaccine showed a huge drop in heroin consumption, giving the institute hope that it could also work on people[...]
Using the immune system's ability to make an immune response against any molecule is awesome, but there are a number of potential problems with this sort of approach. In the article, a scientist is quoted as saying that this might block other opioids that are used as theraputics (like Vicodin), but I don't think it's a good idea to use opioids as pain relievers in…
denialism | February 15, 2012WSJ has an article about the increasing number of pediatricians who fire their patients who refuse to vaccinate:
Pediatricians fed up with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children out of concern it can cause autism or other problems increasingly are "firing" such families from their practices, raising questions about a doctor's responsibility to these patients.
Medical associations don't recommend such patient bans, but the practice appears to be growing, according to vaccine researchers.
In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had…
sa smith | February 8, 2012Are you freaking kidding me???
Super Bowl Village visitors on Friday may have been exposed to measles
Tuesday night, the state Department of Health confirmed they have requested information from county health departments as part of an investigation into a report that a person who has been diagnosed with measles attended the festivities Friday.
According to the Super Bowl Host Committee, 200,000 people were at Super Bowl Village on Friday. At the free concerts late Friday night, 35,000 people were gathered to see LMFAO's performance. It is still unclear what time the ill person visited…
sa smith | January 25, 2012Non-stick pans, water-proof clothing, stain-proof carpet, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags, the air outdoors, the air indoors-- if youve ever been exposed to these things, you have been exposed to 'Perfluorinated Compounds' (PFCs).
Because the most common PFCs have a relatively long half-life (~4 years!), and because weve basically all been exposed, you can find PFCs in the blood of about 90% of us here in the US. Its ubiquitous. And, like with a lot of things, 'some' isnt that big of a deal, but 'more' can cause problems. The questions are where that 'some' to 'more' threshold is, and…
sa smith | January 23, 2012Readers of ERV know the basics of how breast feeding affects the immune system of breast-feeding babbies:
Fetuses (fetii?) and babbies are protected from pathogens, even though their own immune systems have not matured yet. How do they manage this feat? They steal antibodies from Mommy!
Remember yesterday I said the same antibody can have lots of different butt-ends? The same 'business end' that recognizes tetanus toxin or a variant of influenza, but different back-ends-- each different butt has a different skill set.
... Newborn Babbies steal Moms antibodies a different way! IgM and IgA…
kbonham | January 18, 2012I promise, this will be my last semen post for a while.
I've talked about allergy to semen.
I've talked about allergens in semen.
And I've talked about autoimmunity to semen.
All of these are problems, leading to discomfort or infertility. But what if those problems could be leveraged for our benefit?
[Source: These drawings were made by Antonie von Leeuwenhoek - the first man to view sperm cells under a microscope]
Using the immune system as a contraceptive is not a new idea. In 1899, Karl Landsteiner
and Elie Metchnikoff (both of whom would later win Nobel Prizes) independently…
sa smith | January 17, 2012Science is nothing without trust.
We trust each other to perform experiments exactly how we say we did.
We trust each other to report our findings exactly how they turned out.
We *have* to trust each other, or else we just sit in our labs doing the same experiments over and over and over, to see the results with our own eyes.
That is one of the reasons why scientists get so pissed off when experimental protocols are not accurately reported, or worse, when data is not accurately reported (if not outright fabricated).
This article highlights the role trust plays in science from a different…
sa smith | January 17, 2012It has officially been one year since India diagnosed a new case of polio.
This week, India will cross the milestone of 12 consecutive months without any case of polio being reported - the onset of paralysis of the last case was on 13 January, 2011 in West Bengal.
More:
India was once recognized as the world's epicentre of polio. As recently as 2009, India had the highest burden of polio cases in the world (741), more than the three other endemic countries combined. Due to extraordinary measures to reach children with vaccine, India has not seen a case since a 2-year-old girl in the state of…
denialism | January 5, 2012Seth Mnookin has reasons to hope. It has been clear though for years that Huffpo was a clearinghouse for what I would describe as liberal crankery, which includes things like Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccine crankery, or Bill Maher's anti-pharma paranoia.
But now they have a new site, Huffpo Science, and after my head stopped ringing from that particular oxymoron I went and checked it out.
A lead article on going to Mars by Buzz Aldrin was interesting. An article on Frankenmeat came out relatively clean without getting all paranoid about GMO foods or lab-grown nutrients being less pure…
sa smith | January 3, 2012The very first sign Judy Mikovits was not just a little 'off-her-rocker' kook-coo, but full on 'off-the-rocker-set-it-on-fire-and-dancing-around-the-flames-nude-while-using-feces-as-war-paint' kook-coo, was this comment she made about XMRV, vaccines, and autism, before her shit paper was even published:
"On that note, if I might speculate a little bit," she said, "This might even explain why vaccines would lead to autism in some children, because these viruses live and divide and grow in lymphocytes -- the immune response cells, the B and the T cells. So when you give a vaccine, you send your…
milhayser | December 19, 2011
On The Pump Handle, Liz Borkowski examines the ethical dilemma of testing the anthrax vaccine in children. If a widespread attack were to occur, we would want to know the safety and efficacy of the vaccine beforehand. But is an attack likely enough to warrant testing the vaccine on children? On ERV, Abbie Smith explains how vaccines are made: "Sometimes we use dead viruses. Sometimes we use crippled viruses. Sometimes we dont need to use whole viruses at all—little chunks of the virus are fine. Sometimes we just need chunks of the virus, but we keep them dressed up in hollow membranes."…
tsmith | November 15, 2011Oh, Discover. You're such a tease. You have Ed and Carl and Razib and Phil and Sean, an (all-male, ahem) cluster of science bloggy goodness. But then you also fawn over HIV deniers Lynn Margulis and Peter Duesberg. Why can't you just stick with the science and keep the denial out?*
But no, now they've let it spill into their esteemed blogs. I was interested to see a new blog pop up there, The Crux, a group blog "on big ideas in science and how these ideas are playing out in the world. The blog is written by an outstanding group of writer/bloggers and scientist/writers who will bring you the…
sa smith | November 9, 2011Im sure you all have heard this story--
Chickenpox parties--just a Facebook friend away
"Pox packages," child abuse, and the violation of federal law
I dont have much to add other than a question for the parents doing this:
I mean, lets ignore the ethical and legal implications of what they are doing. Lets just focus on the 'logic' behind what they are doing.
They do not want to vaccinate their children, because they are worried about their children becoming 'contaminated' from 'chemicals' or 'toxins' or 'voodoo spirits' or whatever and get sick.
Vaccines were developed by hundreds of…
tsmith | November 4, 2011I've written a few times about chickenpox parties. The first link refers to a magazine article describing the practice; the second, a few years later, about a Craigslist ad looking to hold such a party "at McDonald [sic] or some place with toys to play on."
Clearly, as chickenpox cases have become more rare in recent decades due to the success of the chickenpox vaccine, moving toward social media to find infections is the way to go. It allows people to find such cases and expose their immunologically naive children to a serious virus, just as easily as googling Jenny McCarthy Body Count."…
sa smith | October 26, 2011The HPV vaccine is one of my most favoritest vaccines.
From a public health perspective, its efficacy is unprecedented.
From an immunological perspective, learning how the HPV vaccine works is going to teach us something about our immune system we didnt know before.
From a virological and evolutionary perspective, we dont have to be worried HPV is going to evolve 'around' our vaccine, or 'new evils' will take the eliminated variants place.
Its a beautiful vaccine!
It would be great, for women, if boys got the vaccine too. Of course, boys cannot get cervical cancer, but they can carry the…