vaccines
sa smith | October 19, 2011Conceptually, vaccines are very simple things-- Dummy viruses/bacteria/pathogen that train your immune system how to fight the real viruses/bacteria/pathogen. All the benefits of being sick (training your B- and/or T-cells how to fight the pathogen) without actually having to get sick.
Nice.
In practice, however, things are infinitely more difficult. 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…
gregladen | October 6, 2011A study incorporating over 12,000 prior peer reviewed publications, addressing the question of vaccine safety, is due for release by the National Academies of Science. The study attempts to understand adverse effects of vaccines and to assign causality to supposed negative outcomes. The 667 page study covers a large number of vaccines. And yes, it addresses autism.
The study cataloged about 60 distinct adverse effects across 8 categories of vaccine treatments, two of which contain multiple vaccines, for a total of 12 distinct vaccines, as well as more general injection-related events (…
sa smith | September 13, 2011An infinite loop of crazy--
Apparently Michele Bachmann (Crazy, MN) wants her daughters (and any/all women) to get cervical cancer if they grow up to engage in any kind of sex their mother doesnt agree with (but almost certainly engaged in herself), so at the Republican debate for whatever, she 'called out' Rick Perry (Crazy, TX) for legislating mandatory HPV vaccines for girls.
To have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong. That should never be done. That's a violation of a liberty interest.
"Well, I'm…
kbonham | September 13, 2011When folks in my lab think about biological problems, we think about basics. A pathogen has some molecular component that trips a sensor on the outside of a cell. That sensor (the receptor) grabs on to some adapter proteins and starts a cascade of chemical reactions catalyzed by various enzymes, which eventually leads to the activation of a transcription factor or factors that changes the behavior of a cell. We think at the level of the cell, at the level of the protein and at the level of the molecule. Occasionally, if we write a paper and the reviewers insist, we might do an assay to see if…
sa smith | August 25, 2011What a scientist means when they say "Person 1 didnt respond well to Vaccine A":
Person 1 was given a vaccine. They did not generate a protective adaptive immune response from that vaccine (either B- or T-cell, whichever was supposed to occur). OR Person 1 did show an adaptive response initially, but there was no memory/short memory.
What a normal person means when they say "Person 1 didnt respond well to Vaccine A":
Person 1 was given a vaccine. They got a fever/headache/passed out/etc.
As cold as this sounds, scientists dont exactly care about your fever and headache. Technically, those…
sa smith | August 12, 2011YAAAAAAAAAY!!!
A *big* "THANK YOU!!" to The Thinking Atheist for recording and producing these videos (all of the speeches will be up on his YouTube channel). He brought all the equipment, the audio is great, the video is great, he integrated in the slides from my PowerPoint, dealt with uploading everything to YouTube (I know thats a headache), and on top of it all, he was a super sweet guy. And youll be able to see that for yourself when his speech gets uploaded!!
THANK YOU!!!
sa smith | August 8, 2011EMAIL! (technically, a paraphrased really great question from someone at FreeOK!)
Dear ERV--
Is there any reason why I, a young healthy adult, really *need* to get the flu shot every year? Even if I do get the flu, wont that just make my immune system stronger?
Blech. Flu shots. Every damn year people are bugging us to get the flu shot. But no one likes shots. They cost like $10-$20. Have to take off work or run to get one in between classes. And then your arm hurts allllll daaaaay and you might get a headache or a little fever. UUUUUUUGH WHYYYYY????? WHYYYY????
"Do I *have* to…
sa smith | August 2, 2011EMAIL!
Dear ERV--
If I work with kids who are not immunized and I get pregnant, is my fetus at risk?
This is a question I got from an audience member post-FreeOK, and it was too good not to share with everybody!!
First, a disclaimer I dont normally have to state-- I iz not an MD, I am an almost PhD. Talking about the general science of antibodies/mommies/babbies, not giving medical advice, here.
First, the good news:
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…
sa smith | July 26, 2011One of my very first memories was chicken pox.
I was like 3 years old-- I had these damn itchy spots on my stomach, so I was standing in front of the kitchen sink, showing them to my mom like "WTF???"
Mom: Oh honey, youve got chicken pox!
Me: But I dont *WANT* chicken pox. (eyes welling up with tears, annoyed beyond belief)
Mom: LOL! Awww, I know you dont, honey.
The next couple of weeks was hell. Like I said, this was one of my first memories-- Complete misery. I mean, I was a kid that had double pneumonia and still ran and played and had a marvelous time, and chicken pox *sucked*. Ive…
sa smith | July 21, 2011I suck! Desiree Schelle has been trying to get me on Skeptically Speaking since, like, last December, and I keep getting busy and putting it off and then I was like "GHA I SUCK NAME A DATE!"
So Im going to be on her show this Sunday to talk about HIV-1!
We record live with Abbie Smith on Sunday, July 24 at 6 pm MT. The podcast will be available to download at 9 pm MT on Friday, July 29.
And theeeen, after some scheduling rearrangements, Im actually going to get to speak July 30th at the inaugural conference for Oklahoma skeptics and freethinkers, FreeOK! Its $10 for a day of speakers:
AND…
sa smith | July 19, 2011Part I: HPV
Part II: Measles
Part III: More Measles
Its July 18th. A little over half-way into 2011. And in Ethiopia, about 18,000 people have gotten measles, with a touch over 100 dead.
There has also been an outbreak in Somali refugee camps in Kenya, with almost 500 sick and 11 dead.
Meanwhile, here in the US, we have antivaxers throwing money away on snake-oil to cure their children of autism (and the collection of non-medically recognized that seem to go along with seeing woo-treatment from autism experts charlatans, like OCD-like dietary rituals and paranoia about 'multiple chemical…
sa smith | July 13, 2011For some reason, I thought a potential side-effect of flu vaccines was Guillain-Barre syndrome. I mean, its super super rare, but I thought that was a stock-standard potential adverse event. Apparently, thats not the case-- whether Guillain-Barre syndrome is an actual side-effect of influenza vaccines is a controversial subject (not just with anti-vaxers, or hoaxers, but like, the real world). It might have just been a freak accident in one years batch of vaccines in the 1970s, it might have been a statistical fluke, it might not be anything.
But the field itself is concerned about adverse…
sa smith | July 11, 2011*heavy-sigh*
HIV Research World is infecting other fields:
A Highly Conserved Neutralizing Epitope on Group 2 Influenza A Viruses
Media coverage of referenced paper:
Discovery of Natural Antibody Brings a Universal Flu Vaccine a Step Closer
No, it doesnt. Unless if by 'universal flu vaccine' you actually mean 'gene therapy for everyone instead of flu shots'.
Look, heres what happens-- Scientists sift through thousands and thousands and thousands of B-cells, the cells that make antibodies, and ID ones that make antibodies that are really good at neutralizing lots of different kinds of…
sa smith | July 7, 2011I have written quite a bit about Cytotoxic-T-Cell-based HIV-1 vaccines here on ERV. Though antibodies can target HIV-1 viruses, and HIV-1 infected cells, CTLs should be the go-to workhorses for killing HIV-1 infected cells.
Pimped-up Souped-up Bionic Assassin Lethal Weapon Killer T-Cells as a cure for AIDS?
HIV-1 CTL Vaccine: OH SHI-
HIV-1 Vaccine: Again, OH SHI-
HIV-1 CTL Vaccine: lol, we are screwed.
HIV-1: Humans are all pink on the inside. Pink, and CD4+ T-cells.
Found another one:
HIV-1 CTL Vaccine: $%@#!
Because HIV-1 is a virus, it uses all of the host cells machinery to produce…
sa smith | June 21, 2011No, Im not talking about XMRV ;)
Im talking about using genetically modified viruses to treat prostate cancer :)
Broad antigenic coverage induced by vaccination with virus-based cDNA libraries cures established tumors
First, just to be clear, I dont know how this works. :-/
I mean, I know how this 'works', but I dont know how its actually working.
Firstly, it works nothing like the anti-tumor vaccines I have written about previously. In that case, scientists used HSV-1 as a Kamikaze-- the virus delivers a protein to the cancer cell that attracted immune cells to kill the tumor.
Not how this…
sa smith | May 16, 2011Cytomegalovirus is one of those ubiquitous viruses. Pretty much everyone on Earth is infected with it, and if you arent, you probably will be at some point in your life.
Some scientists got the idea to use CMV as a gene delivery system for HIV-1-- 'Infecting' cells with 'HIV' without actually infecting cells with HIV, meaning 'CMV/HIV infected' cells express HIV proteins and train the immune system to respond to an HIV infection, in the absence of actual HIV.
Profound early control of highly pathogenic SIV by an effector memory T-cell vaccine
This vaccine trained macaques Cytotoxic T-cells…
sa smith | May 3, 2011There are no women on the internet at Skeptic meetings, women are more religious than men, women love astrology and ghosts and talking to spirits, it is easy to get the impression that women are the 'weaker sex'-- estrogen and glitter and unicorns and intuition and strawberry bubblegum build an impenetrable wall between women and science and reason.
Jenny McCarthy and her 'Mommy Warriors' campaign against vaccines dont do us any favors by perpetuating this stereotype. Science is not on their side, but they *just know* better. Mommies intuition *gigglehairflip* They *just know* their babbies…
tsmith | April 29, 2011Maryn McKenna has an excellent post on 2008's measles outbreak in Arizona. 14 confirmed patients, 8,321 individuals tracked down, 15,120 work hours lost at 7 Arizona hospitals due to furloughs of staff who were not appropriately vaccinated, and almost $800,000 spent by 2 hospitals just to contain the disease--and it all could have been prevented.
tsmith | April 25, 2011The Times Square Jumbotron ad keeps trucking, and with it frustration from the medical and public health community. The American Academy of Pediatrics sent a letter to CBS Outdoors, asking them to pull the ad, to no avail. Rahul Parikh thinks it's time to do more:
We in medicine need more than letters and passive education for parents on a website. What we really need are some Mad Men of our own. If you want guidance, look at what the folks at the the American Legacy Foundation have done with their anti-smoking campaign, The Truth. Who can forget the TV commercial where a truck pulls up to…
tsmith | April 8, 2011Via Skepchick, CBS will be airing ads from the National Vaccine Information Center and Mercola on the CBS Jumbotron in Time's Square (NVIC announcement here). This, while there's a measles outbreak in Minnesota (and another one being investigated in Utah), and we're on the heels of the worst pertussis outbreak in generations in California. Shameful.
Hello,
I recently learned that CBS will be playing ads featuring misinformation by the National Center for Vaccine information Vaccine Information Center. These ads are misleading and potentially dangerous. Vaccine-preventable illnesses have had…