By Rud Istvan
Since respected ‘experts’ like Dr. Fauci are saying there is no return to normal until an effective vaccine is widely available, I thought I would use my hard earned infectious disease knowledge, (previously explained in Wuhan post #1) plus a day of new research to provide a WUWT synopsis of at least a present partial state of play, deep diving on two of the US most promising vaccine candidates. (There are at least 8 promising vaccines in active global development; too many to globally cover in detail in this guest post.)
Vaccination
The true origin was from Dr. Jenner in 1796, when he observed that a mild cowpox infection protected from deadly smallpox infection, and then tested that observational hypothesis on 8 year old James Phipps before his (now ethically unthinkable) variolation. See www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMC1200696 for the details of this miracle. Older American smallpox vaccination shoulder scars are merely the scratched sites of your single mild cowpox infection vaccination, no different than young James Phipps in May 1796.
The general vaccination idea is to alert the immune system (both B cell humoral antibodies and T cell killer systems, if possible) to pathogen antigens without triggering the actual disease. If the disease pathogen does later arrive, the immune system is “primed” to defeat it rapidly. Many deadly diseases have been mostly defeated thanks to vaccination, including smallpox, polio, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), …
The antivaxxer canard that MMR vaccine causes autism goes back to a very small sample scientific scandal by a crooked British gastroenterologist, explained in detail in the Coincidence chapter of my ebook The Arts of Truth. Short medical synopsis: the digestive tract has little to do with brain function. Short coincidence synopsis: autism does not manifest before 18 months of age, and only sometimes thereafter; until then the brain is still ‘sculpting’ connection/removal of neurons. (A blind ‘lazy eye’ is one physical example of this early neuron sculpting process.) It so happens that pediatricians recommend MMR vaccination at around 18 months to 24 months, when autism can first manifest.
There are at least two insurmountable potential Wuhan vaccine problems.
- Some vaccinations last for a lifetime (smallpox). Others do not (chickenpox/shingles partial lifetime, tetanus ~5 years). We dunno what might be the case for Wuhan.
- Viruses, especially RNA viruses (see rumination #1) mutate. That is why the annual flu vaccine ranges from good to bad. The vaccine targets three or four of the most commonly circulating flu varieties from this year, for next year’s vaccine. The problem is that the virus is always mutating, so by the end of next year what is circulating is mostly mutations of the types last year’s vaccine missed. We do not know yet the rate of Wuhan mutation. It appears maybe less that influenza, but we already know of at least 40 mutations, plus a less virulent US West Coast strain directly from China, and a more virulent East Coast strain imported from China via Italy. (Why Gov. Cuomo said NY had a European virus problem.) So how good the coverage of a possible Wuhan vaccine might be is also a speculation.
Wuhan
It is an enveloped single stranded positive sense RNA virus. It has three neutralizing antibody targets: capsid N protein, and the S1 and S2 sites on the S spike protein. See rumination #6. With careful antibody selection, these can provide exquisitely good antibody test/vaccine targets. The newly EUA approved Abbott antibody test is 99.6% sensitive and 100% specific! (See rumination #6 for the HUGE beneficial significance of this new Abbott antibody test development compared to the Becton-Dickenson test announced a month ago.)
But except for a canine enteric coronavirus vaccine (Merck Animal Health), which does NOT protect against the canine respiratory form of the same virus, there has NEVER been a successful coronavirus vaccine developed–ever. So despite Dr. Fauci’s hopes and efforts, that may well remain true with Wuhan. This is a risky uncharted business with significant economic consequences.
Vaccines
There are in the US at least two interesting and very different initiatives. What makes them scientifically interesting is that they both come from new science ‘vaccine platforms’. That is, a more general purpose scientific/laboratory system that pre-existed Wuhan, enabling faster specific vaccine development.
The fastest, and IMO riskiest, platform is Moderna Therapeutics, who have finished Phase 1 and just got FDA EUA permission to go into Phase 2 testing in humans. (For the uneducated about formal FDA stuff required by the statutory PFDA Act of 1906 as later amended–and renamed the FDCA–EUA means Emergency Use Authorization (cutting regulatory corners), Phase 1 is a few tens of humans primarily for safety, Phase 2 (which can have A dose ranging and then B efficacy subparts) in more humans (hundreds), and then Phase 3 where the P2A/B selected dose is tested for safety and efficacy in many (thousands), which if it works and is safe eventually leads to FDA legal approval).
The Moderna platform was conceived only for viruses. In this case, it is using synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) from Wuhan, hoping that the immune system will respond to the injection of those foreign nucleoside entities with neutralizing antibodies. They were fast because they already had the RNA platform, so as soon as Moderna got the Wuhan RNA genetic code late January, they could identify likely antibody targets.
Unfortunately, the just passed Phase 1 safety trial COULD mean it simply doesn’t work at all. Moderna has never gotten a vaccine approved off its platform despite being founded in 2010. Maybe this time will be different. Whether if successful they can scale production is unknown—the CEO just said that if approved, its vaccine would be limited in quantity.
The other big US platform is J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Their platform has also been developing for several years, and has two components. They have a genetically modified human common cold adenovirus (AdVir) that is used as a vaccine genetic carrier. The adenovirus modifications mean it CANNOT anymore replicate in humans; it just delivers DNA. (Remember from my post 1, adeno is only 5% of common colds, but is a DNA virus.) Plus, a human derived special (epithelial?) cell line where the modified adenovirus can rapidly replicate in large (1000 liter) bioreactors to make lots of vaccine ‘virus’ carrier” fast despite not in humans. They have used this platform to develop potential vaccines for Zika, RSV, and HIV, all in Phase 2-3 testing. So a lot of the background human FDA sciency/safety viral carrier stuff has already been done.
They used this platform to insert a variety of Wuhan potential RNA (transcribed as DNA) immune system targets into AdVir in late January (the transcribed DNA replication versions of the RNA viral messenger protein(s) fragments, hopefully), then used animal testing to select a primary vaccine candidate plus two backups for further “transcribed DNA’ animal testing now ongoing. They hope to be in humans (skipping platform unnecessary Phase 1 safety) in September, and say they could be producing millions of doses monthly by early 2021. This, IMO, has a good chance of succeeding given both the platform and the process they are using, despite the fact that it is a DNA, not RNA, genetic viral system. Maybe our immune systems do not care in which form the viral genetics are presented. We can hope.
Concluding Remarks
This is complicated stuff. We are seeing some of the best of modern science (genetic sequencing, Moderna, J&J) and some of the worst (Neil Fergusons’s Imperial College epidemiological model garbage coding) on display at the same time. As said before, analogies to ‘climate science’ are legion. As a simple coding example, naive infectious rate R0 is both an input and an output in all epidemiological models depending on personal behaviors. (Naives, self-distancings). BIG math model PROBLEMs unsolvable except by beliefs
All we need are a few more positive reports about hydroxychloroquine and then we can have confidence in opening up our economy fully.
Tom
Most of the positive reports for HCQ were in the beginning of the pandemic. What has been happening recently is that the reports have been less than encouraging. That is probably what is at least partly responsible for all the effort in testing old drugs and trying to make new ones — that and the hope for obscene profits by Big Pharma!
If you and others really think that the fix is in, and that Big Pharma is going to get their designer drugs, you might want to consider taking out a second mortgage on your house and buy stock while the market is down, instead of complaining about the potential cost.
Clyde, I haven’t seen any negative reports on hydroxychloroquine. I’ve seen a few that said it had little or no effect, and I’ve seen some like the French study that showed the hydroxychloroquine treatment was clearing the Wuhan virus from the patients in about six days. Remdesivir is claimed to shorten the infection by about four days in some studies.
There seem to be enough good drug candidates for treating Wuhan virus that even if hydroxychloroquine doesn’t prove out, there are others that may be effective.
I heard a doctor the other day who is treating the childhood inflamation supposedly caused by Wuhan virus and she said the children’s symptoms were treatable with the current drugs they used normally.
Inflamation seems to be the big problem with Wuhan virus so any drugs that reduce these actions in the body might be effective in treating the Wuhan virus.
The best policy for the most vulnerable populations it seems is to treat the Wuhan virus when symptoms first appear with some kind of anti-inflamatory drug or drugs.
This Wuhan virus is a nasty virus. It causes all sorts of damage to potentially every organ in the body including inflaming the blood vessels throughout the body, and supposedly the longer it remains in the body the more damage it does.
Still, it looks like we are getting a handle on treating the Wuhan virus which ought to make people a little more confident about going out into the public. If you can count on a drug to pull you through the worst the Wuhan virus can do,or keep it from doing its worst, and it looks like there may be a few out there, then you won’t be too worried about catching it in the first place.
I don’t understand why the CDC doesn’t tell people the basic stuff we need to know.
Go outside get Vit D, don’t use sunscreen if you are not out long enough to burn, otherwise take a vitamin D supplement and a good Zn and Quercetin supplement during cold and flu season and esp during this pandemic. That is the bare minimum.
And finally, thrive and be your best.
HCQ and Zn with AZ should be widely prescribed at first signs of a cold until this pandemic is in control.
All of this information is bad news for industries that rely and need people to be sick. But there is plenty of need for this industry to help us healthy with things we cannot easily prevent. This one is easily mitigated by common sense which is NOT TO BE deficient in some known nutrients!
In looking at the Wuhan virus length of hospitalization it looks to me like the Wuhan virus disease takes an extremely long time to clear from an extremely large number of those infected.
How does the normal flu compare in this regard? I haven’t had the flu in decades but I seem to remember that the illness usually only lasted about a week or ten days at most. The Wuhan virus is a lot different.
Taking a swipe at ‘anti-vaxxers’ seems about the same level as calling climate skeptics deniers
Another question: Why aren’t we using Wuhan virus plasma vaccine in all the patients in all our nursing homes?
The treatment is supposdely safe and effective. Shouldn’t we be using this limited resource on the most vulnerable first?
http://www.needtoknow.news
Right hand column, second article down. 1st peer-reviewed paper: vaccinated kids more illness 470% more autism
G. Edward Griffin’s site. He wrote The Creature From Jekyll Island, an expose of the Fed.
Chapter summaries can be read in about an hour,
JD.
http://www.brighteon.com/45c1558c-4163-4961-9f92-11c7c4c1af21
PlanDEMIC The Movie
26 mins.
Dr Judy Mikovits exposes Fauci as plagiarist & thief who let millions die of Aids while he stole her boss’ work.
Youtube are desperate to erase this film.
Clues?
http://www.ageofautism.com/dr-andrew-wakefield/
Dr. Wakefield & his two co-authors were cleared years ago, but you would not know that reading our fake news MSM.
JD
There is no return to normal? How can people be so stupid – things returned to normal after every single corona virus outbreak in history! Why is this one different – only because we have so many idiot ‘experts’ and ‘modelers’ and politicians. It is only their lockdown policy that has created the idea that we can’t go back to normal – it may even have created the actual possibility, by interfering with the natural course of the epidemic, that it won’t abate like it would have done naturally – it could well remain a problem for years instead of just months.
This is a risky uncharted business with significant economic consequences. By economic consequences, do you mean everything other than specifically treating the virus. Delayed, altered or canceled critical medical services such as cancer treatments? The removal of churches and other forms of interaction as an alternative to governmental moral authority? As in the quality and quantity of life other than COVID-19?
How to make a vaccine:
Mix animal tissue, human tissue, and viruses:
What could go wrong?
Oh, and by the way, weaponized viruses (bio-weapons) are made the same way:
Mix animal tissue, human tissue, and viruses;
I could say, “what could go wrong,” but the point is to be dangerous… to be deadly… to incapacitate.
Food for thought… on the other hand, I just lost my appetite.
How do we know some failed but still used vaccines are not successful bioweapons?
You asked about bioweapons. You should be aware of this article:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/was-the-coronavirus-created-by-chinese-scientist-who-tried-to-cover-her-tracks-and-failed
David: Thank you for posting this.
My lord, what is this article? It seems well written! Is it considered true? If yes, we may have a big problem with China, bigger than we thought.
As in the words of Huey Newton and the News, yes it’s true. I have been writing articles warning about China for six years. This was the first: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/04/as_china_and_japan_prepare_for_war_american_forces_battle_over_turf.html
Big war coming – the South China Sea thing can be resolved no other way.
I actually went to a Huey Lewis and the News concert when I was a teen… I’ll have to check your link out!
Covid19 creates a life threatening situation for only a small minority; for them American MDs Roger Sheult plus Zach Bush and Russian prof. Alexey Polonikov (Kursk) are on a parallel tracks: prevent hypoxic injury by administering N-Acetylcysteine and/ or glutathione by IV to improve oxygen uptake throughout the body. These can also be taken orally before things get bad.
Research consortium finds that immunity from Wu WHOFlu vaccines could be long-lasting:
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/15/good-news-on-the-human-immune-response-to-the-coronavirus
Also that some existing antibodies seem to work against the ChiComCoV.