vaccines
revere | September 25, 2009There's hopeful news about the possibility of an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine and a weird story from Canada about "preliminary results" saying that you are more at risk from swine flu if you get the seasonal flu vaccine. With flu, anything is possible, but that is more than a little counterintuitive and strikes me as unlikely. Nowhere else has reported a similar experience. Since we don't know the methods or the data or the limitations or much of anything else that could allow us to consider how much to weigh this as evidence I won't say any more about it.
While we do write about vaccines here…
revere | September 24, 2009Bats are no doubt fascinating animals. They also carry rabies. And I'll be honest with you. Rabies scares the crap out of me. Most people know that rabies is caused by a virus that is spread through the saliva of an infected animal. Because the virus attacks the nervous system, rabid animals often act aggressively and may bite, thus transmitting the disease. Fortunately vaccination against rabies is available and since the disease has a longish incubation period, there is usually ample time after being bitten by a known or suspected rabid animal to get a series of shots that will protect you…
ddobbs | September 22, 2009
The swine flu triage tent at Dell's Children's Medical Center, in Austin, Texasphoto: Ralph Barerra, Austin American-Statesman
I can't keep up with the flu news. (If you want to, best single bet -- the wide net -- is Avian Flu Diary.) But as the World Health Organisation meets in Hong-Kong to discuss, among other things, swine flu, here are a couple that make good follow-ups to my Slate piece on how adjuvants gobble up vaccine antigen supply:
WHO pushes for worldwide swine flu vaccinations (hoping to vaccinate 3 billion) -- despite that overall supply will fall short .
The U.S. (and some…
revere | September 22, 2009There are multiple trials of swine flu vaccine in different countries and involving different subpopulations. Recent news strongly suggests that -- surprisingly -- a single dose of viral antigen (i.e., one injection) may be sufficient to raise antibody against swine flu to protective levels. There are a lot of uncertainties here, but the data have been fairly consistent. But that's for adults (over 18 years old). Since children are also had high risk, there is much apprehension whether a single dose will also work for children. Now we're getting some of the first results and the news is good…
revere | September 19, 2009It's a virus that kills someone every 20 minutes in this world, usually a child. A vaccine is on the way but isn't here yet. The good news is that what usually requires multiple doses may only require a single dose. It's big news. It's also not about swine flu vaccine:
A replication-deficient rabies virus vaccine that lacks a key gene called the matrix (M) gene induced a rapid and efficient anti-rabies immune response in mice and non-human primates, according to James McGettigan, Ph.D., assistant professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson…
grrlscientist | September 18, 2009tags: Manu, Peru, travel, birding, eco-tourism, vaccinations, Kolibri Expeditions
I was contacted by Gunnar Engblom (Kolibri Expeditions), whom I've been casually acquainted with online for years, asking me if I'd like to be the "official blogger" for a birding trip to Peru. Yeow, would I?!? This unexpected offer surprised me, to say the least, but it didn't take too long for excitement to set in after I realized this was a serious offer: I would get to observe and photograph wild parrots!
Unfortunately, I have recently been preoccupied with several seemingly insurmountable tasks, including…
terrasig | September 18, 2009Prof Tara Smith thought it important enough to come back from her hiatus to explain why she's doing the same for her kids.
That's why.
Addendum (20 Sept 2009): In my rush to put up a very quick post on Friday, I just saw that Revere at Effect Measure put up a detailed post on why we should always get the regular seasonal flu vaccine regardless of the current H1N1 pandemic.
ddobbs | September 17, 2009
My latest piece for Slate examines the unsettling consequences of the United States' choice of swine flu vaccines.
The good news about these vaccines is that, to judge by the first vaccine trial results, published last week, they appear to work fast, safely â and at about a half to a quarter of the doses that the CDC expected. This means we effectively have about two to four times as many vaccines as we had figured we would. Since we ordered 195 million doses, we could vaccinate damn near the whole country.
If the fast-tracking efforts continue to work and the flu peaks closer to Christmas…
revere | September 17, 2009I just got my seasonal flu shot. It was free and my medical center is encouraging everyone to get one. I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said I didn't feel it at all, but in all honesty, I hardly felt it. They must be using smaller needles these days. Anyway, given that most circulating flu virus is pandemic swine flu H1N1, for which a vaccine is not yet available (coming soon to a clinic near you, we're told), you might wonder why I -- or anyone --would bother. I'll do my best to explain my reasoning, but I'll grant at the outset I may have missed some good reasons or have reasons that…
revere | September 12, 2009There's been a great deal in the news regarding the first reports on the swine flu vaccine trials, so we didn't feel the need to be the first off the mark for something you could read anywhere (and everywhere). We still don't have much to add, but since there was intense discussion and debate about vaccines here this week we thought it appropriate to take a look again now that there are some actual data to see if it changes things for us or not. The short answer (but typical for us) is: yes and no. First, let's review what we think we know at this point (this is big picture; we might have…
revere | September 8, 2009As we expected, yesterday's vaccine piece provoked a lot of discussion, almost all of it thoughtful and pertinent. Since we've already said we might be wrong, we thought we'd take some time to respond, using it as a way to keep thinking things through on our end. Writing is thinking and thinking is needed in this situation.
Over at FluTrackers.com (an excellent flu forum like Flu Wiki with highly informed people) there were a number of lengthy responses, most of them on the negative side. Since these folks follow events closely their opinions are also worth following closely. In addressing…
revere | September 7, 2009When it comes to US swine flu vaccine policy, I'm not calling the shots, but if I were I'd do it differently than the current plan, which calls for a vaccine containing only viral antigen and no immunity boosting adjuvant. I opt for a vaccine with an adjuvant, probably the one that has been used for years in Europe, MF59. If I were to make a decision like that, I could well be making a mistake, because no one really can know at this point what is going to happen or not happen. We can only go on the best data we have coupled with some principles of what's right. On that basis and using my own…
terrasig | August 21, 2009The other day Orac at Respectful Insolence wrote about yet another case where failure to vaccinate has caused a resurgence, in this case of measles in New Zealand.
Otherwise preventable and potentially fatal diseases are popping up in communities around the world as the importance of immunization is ignored by a generation of parents who never knew these diseases.
Well, looks as though they're beginning to find out.
I'm keeping my eye on a similar case brought to my attention by my Twitter feeds from Colorado (if I can't be there, I'll at least read about it). This report from the…
revere | July 28, 2009CDC wants us to get vaccinated for flu every year. Always for seasonal flu, and this year, if there is a vaccine available, for swine flu. They want us to get vaccinated because they think the vaccine works and they want to prevent people from getting influenza, always a dangerous and unpredictable disease, even if most of us usually escape with just a flesh wound. CDC backs up its recommendations by a quite a few scientific studies demonstrating the vaccine is effective, citing figures that the vaccine is 58% effective or 91% or effective or some other number, depending on what group is…
oracknows | July 22, 2009This may be the burningest stupid I've ever seen about vaccines. Maybe. It's so hard to tell given how much idiocy I've seen about vaccines.
I know, it's really, really hard to believe me when I say that what follows deserves to leap right up to the top ranks of brain-melting moronicity. After all, over the last four years, I've delved into the deepest, darkest chasms of pure anti-vaccine stupid. I've subjected myself to the incredible idiocy that is Jenny McCarthy and Kent Heckenlively. I've delved into the most vile cesspits of anti-vaccine propaganda, cesspits so full of misinformation and…
revere | July 20, 2009With flu season in the northern hemisphere looming and H1N1 cutting a nasty swath through good portions of the southern hemisphere's current flu season, attention is being turned to the non-existent but hoped-for vaccine against swine flu. Yesterday we discussed the problem of pinning pandemic planning on a vaccine. That's planning for the best, not hoping for the best. There are a lot of uncertainties regarding whether an unadorned egg-based vaccine -- the bulk of the vaccine now in development -- will be sufficient, available in time or even effective. But those problems just scratch the…
revere | June 11, 2009In William Osler's day (turn of the 20th century), pneumonia was called "the old man's friend," because it took the elderly away quietly and with relatively little fuss. It was most often caused by the pneumococcal organism, now called Streptococcus pneumoniae. When penicillin came on the scene in the mid 20th century, there was at last a treatment for pneumonia with this organism, but soon resistant strains developed. S. pneumoniae is a frequent resident of the human respiratory tract and usually causes no problems. But if it gets into the wrong place it can also cause sepsis, otitis media…
revere | June 2, 2009Ten days ago Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced that the US government was allocating $1 billion to help companies with production costs for a swine flu vaccine. Among the beneficiaries was French vaccine giant, Sanofi-Aventis, whose Sanofi Pasteur unit got a $190 million order. It was likely only the first in a series of expected orders for the company. Sanofi knows how to make vaccines. So what could go wrong?
Drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis has agreed to pay nearly $100 million to settle allegations it cheated Medicaid on the cost of nasal sprays.
The Justice…
revere | May 24, 2009On Friday Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the US was asking vaccine manufacturers to get ready to make an vaccine against this year's swine flu. Before a vaccine can be made there is a substantial amount of preparation that needs to be done, so this just gets the process started. And the first thing that is needed is a vaccine seed strain. We've been hearing from CDC that a seed strain was in preparation. So what's a vaccine seed strain? Two good news articles, one in Nature by Declan Butler, and one in ScienceInsider by Jon Cohen have some…
bioephemera | May 23, 2009
Morgan Care Pharmacy on P St. in Georgetown has all the character so sorely lacking from new drugstore franchises. Drugstores used to be so different: as a child, I savored root beer floats at our local drugstore soda fountain counter. (I know, very Norman Rockwell of me.) Are there any pharmacy soda fountain/luncheonette counters left today?