[HN Gopher] Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought
___________________________________________________________________
Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine works better than thought
Author : nateb2022
Score : 219 points
Date : 2023-12-26 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.freethink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.freethink.com)
| squarefoot wrote:
| If this turns out to work as promised, in a idealistic universe,
| Moderna gets a big influx of money from all countries in the
| world and they immediately publish details and surrender any
| patent allowing the treatment to be produced worldwide and be
| affordable for everyone.
| DoubleDerper wrote:
| i love this idea. worldbank or imf or gates or thiel foundation
| compensates the company for opening the patent for the benefit
| of humanity.
| lawlessone wrote:
| imagine the conspiracy theories though...
|
| "No you can't just fight cancer this way, that's cheating,
| drink this completely natural juice made from pulped fruits
| and vegetables that have been growing separately for 80
| million years."
| treyd wrote:
| What incentive do Gates or Thiel have for doing that?
| lawlessone wrote:
| I could see Gates doing it.
| bawolff wrote:
| I imagine an individually customized vaccine would still be
| expensive even if produced at-cost. Things get cheap when they
| can be mass produced.
| dragonelite wrote:
| We have seen how that went during covid, so dont i wouldn't
| hold your breath on it. The only hope is competition from China
| and others initiating a race to the bottom.
| amelius wrote:
| Maybe in 30 years when all the patents have expired.
| bawolff wrote:
| I mean, it seemed like it worked pretty well with covid.
| Vaccine was produced very quickly, and in most countries was
| free.
| noduerme wrote:
| Not free enough for anticapitalists!
| satchlj wrote:
| If by "free" you mean that taxpayers payed huge amounts of
| money then sure...
| maxerickson wrote:
| It was like $30 a dose or less. Super cheap. Egad.
| croes wrote:
| It wasn't free, just paid by the government means tax money
| means money that's now missing for other things in
| countries like Germany because they still are fixated on
| the 60% debt ceiling based on an Excel error.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| It was a bit expensive, and it took some time to ramp up
| production. Still impressive, though.
|
| The problem was that almost everyone who got the vaccine
| also caught the disease.
| TheBlight wrote:
| Just that pesky problem of them not actually preventing
| infection.
| lawlessone wrote:
| It's not a general vaccine , but a tailored one aimed at people
| being treated for cancers that have a high risk of it coming
| back. So it's not something that can just be handed out to
| everyone.
|
| I agree though if a general vaccine is created.
|
| I'm really looking forward to a future where this and heart
| disease or just merely annoying.
| kurthr wrote:
| In particular: The vaccine works by
| instructing the body to make up to 34 "neoantigens." These
| are proteins found only on the cancer cells, and Moderna
| personalizes the vaccine for each recipient so that
| it carries instructions for the neoantigens on their
| cancer cells.
| loceng wrote:
| And let me guess - there's a massive lobbying effort to be
| able to patent each of these neoantigens, if they're not
| already getting patents approved for them?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a big influx of money from all countries_
|
| We don't know how valuable this tech is. It could be worth
| trillions. It could be niche. Risk sharing, not cost, is the
| currency of deal making.
|
| > _immediately publish details and surrender any patent_
|
| mRNA vaccine production methods are tough, _e.g._ Moderna's
| encapsulation technology. Add to that the personalisation
| required for these treatments, and we're still far from
| economies of scale.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| > mRNA vaccine production methods are tough, e.g. Moderna's
| encapsulation technology
|
| ...and were invented with publicly-funded research that
| they've now privatized, resulting in large death tolls from
| vaccine inequity in poor countries.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _were invented with publicly-funded research that they've
| now privatized, resulting in large death tolls from vaccine
| inequity in poor countries_
|
| This is an odd complaint for this circumstance.
|
| Those poor countries didn't materially fund these vaccines'
| development. And production was fundamentally constrained;
| nations entered into bidding wars to secure them. In the
| end, geopolitics dictated which vaccines--if any--poor
| people got. Covid vaccines were distributed through non-
| market channels.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| It's not at all odd because we learned the disastrous
| political, social, and economic costs, including
| widespread international consequences, of privatization
| of HIV/AIDS treatments in the 90s and 2000s. Treatments
| were developed with publicly-funded research in rich
| western countries, hoarded for profit at the cost of mass
| death in the developing world, which led to increased
| severity of the disease from unchecked spread, which then
| spread back into the countries that hoarded them. There
| is nothing more fundamentally stupid than trying to
| manage global pandemics with nationalism and IP
| restrictions in a world with interconnected economies and
| constant international travel.
| loceng wrote:
| Free market would automatically cause a big influx of money.
|
| A "big influx of money from all countries in the world" - if
| from governments themselves and not individual citizens buying
| - would in fact be a proof point against its claimed
| effectiveness, if forcing the otherwise free market (via
| easily-commonly captured political-government-institutional
| channels) is what's required to drive funding towards it, e.g.
| regulatory capture to provide profits when they may not
| actually be deserved-warranted - say by trying to get approval
| for a fraudulently approved product, e.g. "... the 26
| pharmaceutical companies paid some $33 billion in fines during
| the 13-year period. The top 11 alone accounted for $28.8
| billion" - https://www.pharmaceuticalprocessingworld.com/gsk-
| pfizer-and...
|
| And arguably this is just the tip of the iceberg and the
| industry hasn't been held accountable for most of their fraud
| since the industrial complex formed.
|
| This isn't just a problem with the pharmaceutical industry but
| with clearly corrupt-captured regulators like the FDA - who
| allowed this fraud to happen to begin with, missing or not
| checking into whatever lies were presented for the fraud to
| occur and the products to make it to market.
|
| And that's why headlines like "Moderna's mRNA cancer vaccine
| works better than expected" should be taken with extreme
| skepticism.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Past mRNA cancer vaccines haven't failed to get through trials
| because of ineffectiveness. They failed clinical trials in the
| 2000s and 2010s due to their side effects being too bad. The side
| effects of mRNA vaccines are getting less and less severe over
| the years, but the proof of the pudding will come in phase III
| for this vaccine, as with all the other ones.
| tmountain wrote:
| What kind of side effects?
| neverrroot wrote:
| I don't know about the ones for this vaccine, but the ones
| for the CV vaccine were listed on many pages of tiny text
| (both from Pfizer and from Moderna). Then there are the long
| term consequences, many studies keep coming out with
| surprises (recent buzzword "Ribosomal frameshift").
|
| mRNA will eventually save the day for everyone, including for
| perfectly healthy individuals, but to me as a healthy 40yo
| person, with no known immunity issues, not overweight etc.
| etc. it is in my opinion still too risky to take just like
| that.
| _Microft wrote:
| What does ,,CV" in ,,CV vaccine" mean?
| m0llusk wrote:
| CV: Corona Virus
| croisillon wrote:
| that might explain why i never receive an answer to all
| the CV i sent
| neverrroot wrote:
| Good one!
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| For coronavirus maybe, because it's not much of danger for
| you in the first place, but those risks would be thousands
| of times more acceptable for cancer.
|
| There are no side effects observed from mRNA CV vaccines
| that could be worse when compared to cancers with 1%+
| mortality rate.
|
| As a reminder you won't be taking it before the cancer, you
| would be taking it after the fact.
| neverrroot wrote:
| There are maybe no effects that we know about right now.
| Different people have different opinions on what their
| risk tolerance is, so there could be people that may
| outright disagree with your statement.
|
| And there were even fewer such effects when the vaccines
| have rolled out back in 2020 with emergency approval, but
| without being used "in production" beforehand.
|
| Now we know much more about the mRNA platform, but I
| still can't exclude the possibility entirely for me. So I
| will take my chances and focus much more on quality of
| food, on staying fit, reducing stress etc. etc.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| You should do the healthy things to avoid cancer in the
| first place, but once you are diagnosed with a cancer
| with high mortality rate, it's a whole different
| calculation in terms of risks vs benefits compared to
| Covid-19.
| neverrroot wrote:
| Indeed. My view on vaccines is that they are not a cure
| but act as prevention agents.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| There's multiple vaccines that can also work after you've
| been exposed to a pathogen. In many such cases risks vs
| benefits will change by the event.
|
| For example rabies vaccines is not given to everyone,
| however after you get rabies you will be given that
| vaccine.
|
| Vaccine in this case is a less harmful training tool to
| prepare you for the more harmful pathogen that may still
| be reaching its peak strength.
|
| You can think of vaccines as a training tool. In some
| cases it might provide you with a response that can
| completely throw the pathogen out, in other cases it will
| just be able to fight it better.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >You should do the healthy things to avoid cancer in the
| first place
|
| What are those?
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| There's a certain set of healthy recommendations, but to
| clarify none of them will absolve the risk completely.
| neverrroot wrote:
| Nothing can absolve the risk completely, it's all about
| probabilities. And even if the odds are for something,
| there are outliers and the genes.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >There's a certain set of healthy recommendations
|
| But they are all very general and very vague. Eat right.
| Exercise. Avoiding smoking and alcohol, unless it's red
| wine. Be wealthy Drink Coffee.
|
| Sorry just when I see people suggesting healthy lifestyle
| under this and other articles for things like heart
| disease mRNA treatments, it generally betrays that they
| view being sick as a personal failing.
|
| 1 in 2 people will contract cancer according to the NHS.
| https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cancer/
|
| The biggest factor with cancer is age.
| https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-
| professional/cancer-...
| bluGill wrote:
| Many cancers are caused by random chance, not factors you
| can do something about. sure, don't smoke and all, but
| odds are still high cancer gets you.
| azan_ wrote:
| Can you completely exclude that there are some awful
| long-term consequences of Covid-19 we do not know about
| and that could be prevented by vaccine?
| neverrroot wrote:
| No, I can't. Nobody can at this stage unfortunately.
| hammock wrote:
| >those risks would be thousands of times more acceptable
| for cancer.
|
| This might be true if the treatment was thousands of
| times more effective than the best available alternative
| treatment. I don't know enough about this treatment to
| know if that's the case or not
| azan_ wrote:
| _mRNA will eventually save the day for everyone, including
| for perfectly healthy individuals, but to me as a healthy
| 40yo person, with no known immunity issues, not overweight
| etc. etc. it is in my opinion still too risky to take just
| like that._
|
| It's an interesting take. From what we know so far, the
| risk from taking vaccine is much smaller than from covid
| infection. You might counter this with highlighting the "so
| far" part, but keep in mind that many studies keep coming
| out with surprises not only regarding vaccine side effects,
| but also negative long term effects of covid.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| There's a key difference here that cancer mRNA vaccine
| you are taking after you've been diagnosed with cancer.
|
| Otherwise for Coronavirus vaccines you couldn't argue
| that risks are much smaller for any given person under
| any given conditions. E.g. a person could be completely
| isolated for the next 10 years and have virtually 0%
| chance of getting Covid-19, so in this case there's no
| calculation that could show a vaccine being with more
| favourable benefits/risks.
|
| If there's a 1/10,000 chance of giving you a sore
| shoulder that would be worse in the calculations if you
| are for sure to be isolated from being anywhere near the
| virus.
| azan_ wrote:
| _Otherwise for Coronavirus vaccines you couldn 't argue
| that risks are much smaller for any given person under
| any given conditions. E.g. a person could be completely
| isolated for the next 10 years and have virtually 0%
| chance of getting Covid-19, so in this case there's no
| calculation that could show a vaccine being with more
| favourable benefits/risks._
|
| Well yes, in completely absurd and unrealistic situation
| the risk of taking vaccine might be larger than that of
| Covid-19.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| > Well yes, in completely absurd and unrealistic
| situation the risk of taking vaccine might be larger than
| that of Covid-19.
|
| What about a person living in simple solitude who works
| remotely and orders everything in? This is a realistic,
| non-absurd scenario and they would possibly risk getting
| Covid-19 on their way to the appointment of getting the
| vaccine.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I don't think anyone would care about such a person
| opting not to get a vaccine. But this describes, pretty
| much by definition, a _very_ small portion of a society.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| It's not about what anyone cares, but about making
| calculated decisions.
| ethanbond wrote:
| What
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| For an individual it is a formula of should_vaccinate =
| (risk_of_getting_covid_19 * bad_outcomes) -
| (bad_outcomes_from_vaccines +
| risk_of_getting_covid_19_after_vaccine *
| bad_outcomes_of_covid_19_after_vaccine) > 0
|
| On the group level you would have to consider the damage
| on the group level as well from not getting vaccinated
| due to increase of covid-19 spread, and increased
| hospitalisation levels.
|
| On the global communication and messaging level I agree
| you should tell everyone to vaccinate as you can't easily
| provide everyone with those calculators. And not to
| mention people not being able to come up with correct
| values for those factors themselves.
| lawlessone wrote:
| > What about a person living in simple solitude who works
| remotely and orders everything in? This is a realistic,
| non-absurd scenario and they would possibly risk getting
| Covid-19 on their way to the appointment of getting the
| vaccine.
|
| The biggest whine from anti-vaxers was that they were
| being told they needed a vaccine to do social things they
| enjoyed , like air travel or coughing on the elderly.
|
| I don't think you're hypothetical neo-hermit would being
| doing either of these, so itseems unlikely they'll be
| "forced" to get a vaccine.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| If you do a lot of social events I agree that
| calculations will show that you should likely get
| vaccinated.
|
| None the less doesn't mean that calculations show that to
| every one.
|
| Whatever "anti-vaxers" think doesn't change the
| calculations.
| neverrroot wrote:
| I would argue that any person isolating for 10 years will
| for sure have very significant health drawbacks, so that
| would also have to be factored in.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| You mean in terms of immune system not having been
| exposed to enough pathogens?
| neverrroot wrote:
| Not only, psychological consequences, lack of
| socialization, potentially lack of sun exposure, lack of
| getting medical checkups or adequate treatment etc.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Would depend on the individual right. Not everyone
| requires socialisation.
|
| Isolation doesn't mean lack of sun exposure.
|
| Medical checkups would depend on the age and healthiness
| of the person.
| neverrroot wrote:
| I was talking about risks in general population, those
| are not zero, in spite of some individuals who post
| factum may turn out just fine after 10 years of
| isolation.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| General population wouldn't strive for being isolated in
| the first place though.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Along with the health drawbacks of a sedentary lifestyle,
| unless you're vigilant about getting enough intentional
| exercise to replace the walking around we do over the
| course of a typical day outside the house.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| That's also a weird assumption. The sedentary part. My
| dream life is owning large amount of land with a house
| where I can be completely self sustainable, including
| various automations and this includes having an in-built
| gym.
| hammock wrote:
| >the risk from taking vaccine is much smaller than from
| covid infection
|
| Does that matter if you get covid anyway?
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Yes. The vaccine trains your immune system to create
| antibodies used to fight off the disease. Already having
| those antibodies when the virus appears means that it
| will not last as long and the symptoms will not be as
| severe.
|
| Without the vaccine, your body has to create those
| antibodies while you are already sick, and that takes
| time. This gives the virus a huge head start.
| joneholland wrote:
| You haven't written anything of substance but antivax
| fearmongering.
| neverrroot wrote:
| I have to disagree with this, clearly visible under my
| profile. In general I try to stay clear of any vaccine
| debates, in general because of being labeled in certain
| ways I don't identify myself with at all.
| lukeck wrote:
| > the ones for the CV vaccine were listed on many pages of
| tiny text (both from Pfizer and from Moderna)
|
| The size of the pages side effects were written on says
| absolutely nothing about what the side effects are or their
| severity.
|
| > Then there are the long term consequences, many studies
| keep coming out with surprises (recent buzzword "Ribosomal
| frameshift"
|
| Ribosomal frameshift is in itself not a "long term
| consequence." It is simply that depending on where
| translational of a piece of mRNA starts, different proteins
| can be produced. This is an essential part of how our own
| (or any other organism's mRNA) is translated into proteins.
| other proteins present in a cell can regulate which
| proteins can be produced - again an essential part of how
| our cells function. This has been known about for decades.
|
| It is one of the main potential areas that could lead to
| side effects of an mRNA vaccine so understanding what other
| proteins might be translated and under what circumstances
| is important.
|
| Please don't fear monger without any actual evidence to
| back it.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| > The size of the pages side effects were written on says
| absolutely nothing about what the side effects are or
| their severity.
|
| Naive question: Do they say what the side effects are and
| their severity in an easily accessible manner somewhere?
| hammock wrote:
| The official package insert can be read here:
| https://www.drugs.com/pro/moderna-covid-19-vaccine.html
| oezi wrote:
| From the sibling comment link I would say, yes:
|
| 5 WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS
|
| 5.1 Management of Acute Allergic Reactions
|
| Appropriate medical treatment to manage immediate
| allergic reactions must be immediately available in the
| event an acute anaphylactic reaction occurs following
| administration of Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine.
|
| Monitor Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine recipients for the
| occurrence of immediate adverse reactions according to
| the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
| guidelines
| (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-
| consideration...).
|
| 5.2 Myocarditis and Pericarditis
|
| Postmarketing data with authorized or approved mRNA
| COVID-19 vaccines demonstrate increased risks of
| myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly within the
| first week following vaccination. For Moderna COVID-19
| Vaccine, the observed risk is highest in males 18 years
| through 24 years of age. Although some cases required
| intensive care support, available data from short-term
| follow-up suggest that most individuals have had
| resolution of symptoms with conservative management.
| Information is not yet available about potential long-
| term sequelae.
|
| The CDC has published considerations related to
| myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccination, including
| for vaccination of individuals with a history of
| myocarditis or pericarditis
| (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-
| consideration...).
|
| 5.3 Syncope
|
| Syncope (fainting) may occur in association with
| administration of injectable vaccines. Procedures should
| be in place to avoid injury from fainting.
|
| 5.4 Altered Immunocompetence
|
| Immunocompromised persons, including individuals
| receiving immunosuppressive therapy, may have a
| diminished response to Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine.
|
| 5.5 Limitations of Vaccine Effectiveness
|
| Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine may not protect all vaccine
| recipients.
| robbiep wrote:
| Where, exactly, are the long term consequences of mRNA
| vaccination for SARS-CoV-2? Compared with, say, actually
| developing COVID? (Please note I'm not arguing that
| receiving a COVID mRNA vaccine is entirely risk free,
| however on a risk weighted basis receiving a COVID vaccine
| is much safer than having COVID)
| neverrroot wrote:
| To me the biggest risk is still the unknown, as in not
| enough experience. They have never been used "in
| production" until 2020.
|
| I saved this post as a favorite and set up a reminder in
| 2 years and in 5 years about it. Hope there will be
| nothing to add, and we just got ourselves a mighty
| vaccines platform at zero long term consequences.
| lawlessone wrote:
| > but the ones for the CV vaccine were listed on many pages
| of tiny text (both from Pfizer and from Moderna).
|
| A whole bunch of OTC drugs carry CYA lists like this, it's
| not the gotcha you think it is.
|
| > but to me as a healthy 40yo person, with no known
| immunity issues, not overweight etc.
|
| My father is getting a stent put in for a 70% artery
| blockage. Older of course but skinny, looks after his
| health, exercises. He had no symptoms like pain or being
| out of breath. Just high cholesterol.
|
| A friend of mine in his early 30's healthy nearly got taken
| out by RSV last year because it aggravated a heart
| condition he was unaware of.
|
| People aren't as healthy as they like to convince
| themselves they are.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Yeah you gotta love the people like "COVID is only super
| dangerous if you have comorbidities!" Yeah dude have you
| ever walked around and looked at people? Then have you
| ever talked even to people who _outwardly appear_
| healthy?
|
| Comorbidities run amok, known and unknown.
| pfisherman wrote:
| Get ready to see vaccines be used to prevent and cure
| conditions you that you probably think are outside the
| scope of what vaccines can address.
|
| Projecting further into the future, the world is going to
| be divided into those with access to and willingness to use
| biotechnology and those who don't. Note that I am including
| things like fitness and health tracking apps under the
| umbrella of biotech.
| bluGill wrote:
| The side effects of most cancer treatments are aweful. How do
| they compare?
| satchlj wrote:
| The bar for side effects is much stricter for preventative
| treatments like vaccines.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _bar for side effects is much stricter for preventative
| treatments like vaccines_
|
| These vaccines are for treatment. They don't prevent
| cancer. They treat it. They're vaccines because they work
| by arming your immune system versus doing the fighting
| themselves.
| satchlj wrote:
| > The cancer vaccine: Moderna and pharma giant Merck are
| developing an mRNA-based cancer vaccine, mRNA-4157
| (V940), for people who've had high-risk melanomas
| removed.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _for people who've had high-risk melanomas removed_
|
| This is still treatment. They aren't administering the
| vaccine to healthy adults. The population is melanoma
| survivors with a high risk of recurrence.
| Terr_ wrote:
| A comparison with rabies vaccine may be useful here.
|
| On the scope of the entire human body, the virus usually
| enters first, before the vaccine is used.
|
| However on the scale of individual tissues and cells, the
| vaccine still helps prep them before the (sneaky, slow)
| virus gets its chance to make a decisive attack.
| sbelskie wrote:
| This does not appear to be a preventative treatment. It
| treats existing melanoma by inducing the body to produce
| antibodies against it, no?
| satchlj wrote:
| It is intended for people who've had high-risk melanomas
| removed, to _prevent_ cancer from coming back.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| You're both right. It's preventative, not prophylactic.
|
| We're strict with the latter because they're administered
| to healthy adults. That doesn't apply here. If you took
| every coronavirus mRNA vaccine side effect and multiplied
| the severity and frequency by two orders of magnitude,
| this vaccine would still be worth it for many with
| melanoma.
| ajb wrote:
| The reason preventative treatments are held to a higher
| standard is because they are given to a very large number
| of people who might never get the disease anyway. Hence,
| a 1 in 1000 risk is significant. If you are treating
| people who have had cancer, their risk of getting it
| again in much higher than 1 in 1000.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Right. There's also the fact that the FDA will accept
| much worse side effects for a cancer treatment than they
| would for (e.g.) an athlete's foot treatment.
|
| For a bad cancer like some melanomas, just about anything
| that doesn't kill the patient outright is gonna be on the
| table.
| kurthr wrote:
| It's also personalized, which to me says that it's unique
| and each could have different likelihood of autoimmune
| response. The vaccine works by
| instructing the body to make up to 34 "neoantigens."
| These are proteins found only on the cancer
| cells, and Moderna personalizes the vaccine for
| each recipient so that it carries instructions for the
| neoantigens on their cancer cells.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _failed clinical trials in the 2000s and 2010s_
|
| We didn't start testing neoantigen mRNA cancer vaccines until
| 2017 [1].
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8942458/
| peyton wrote:
| IIRC from when Moderna started getting hot back in 2012 the
| preclinical trials weren't going well. I think those were
| running ca. 2004-2005. Moderna took the infectious disease
| approach.
| mlyle wrote:
| This is an oversimplification, but:
|
| Moderna mostly took an initial infectious disease approach
| because extant mRNA formulations at the time provoked too
| much of an immune response that neutralized the
| effectiveness of subsequent dosing. There's a goldilocks
| amount of immune response you want-- too little and the
| immune system doesn't learn the antigens you'd like, but
| too much makes it miss the mark and focus too much on the
| formulation of the vaccine itself.
|
| For a cancer vaccine that you want to dose multiple times
| (9 times in this study) to keep up peak immune response
| this is a problem. For infectious disease, where some early
| sensitization of the immune system can be enough, it's not
| so bad.
| frozenport wrote:
| Do you have any references?
| mberning wrote:
| Should this really be called a "vaccine"? I feel like that is
| going to give people the wrong impression about what it does. I
| think labelling it gene therapy, immune therapy, or something
| like that would be closer to what it actually does.
|
| Also really interested to see if people will need and/or benefit
| from periodic re-treatment. I guess they can figure that part out
| if it makes it to market.
| satchlj wrote:
| Yes the word 'vaccine' seems misleading to me as well, as
| people tend to think of vaccinations as ways to prevent
| contagious illness. I think immune therapy is a much better
| term.
| jph wrote:
| Yes this should really be called a vaccine. A vaccine is a
| preparation that stimulates the body's immune response against
| diseases. For example, a specific vaccine injection (such as a
| flu shot) can boost the body's own immune system to help
| protect against a specific disease (such as the year's flu
| variant).
| lumb63 wrote:
| All previous vaccines were aimed at preventing infectious
| diseases. None of them are (primarily) indicated for
| preventing recurrence of a non-infectious disease. Whether it
| meets the technical definition or not, we can probably agree
| this is fundamentally different to all other vaccines.
|
| Also, since no other vaccines are custom to each patient,
| using the term "vaccine" could cause confusion. Do we really
| want to give people the idea that they can be "vaccinated
| against melanoma" when the reality is that they can receive a
| treatment to prevent their specific melanoma, which they have
| to have already had, from recurring? It seems laden with
| confusion. Personally, I'll just call it immunotherapy.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The idea that marketed vaccines are safe & effective has
| been well marketed and deeply planted in the minds of the
| public. It's easier to leverage that familiarity than it is
| to build awareness and trust for "immunotherapy".
| maxerickson wrote:
| Why do you wanna call a thing that stimulates an immune
| response to an antigen a gene therapy?
|
| It's using the same mechanism as vaccines (exposure to the
| proteins in question), it's utterly bizarre to conflate it with
| gene therapy.
|
| It's probably reasonable to call it a vaccine based
| immunotherapy.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| It is definitely not a gene therapy.
| cubefox wrote:
| The headline borders on clickbait. The topic is a skin cancer
| vaccine, not a cancer vaccine.
| Euphorbium wrote:
| Do you have to subscribe and get them every month, or they work
| longer?
| preciz wrote:
| Last company that I will trust with my health. These kind of
| articles are pushed very frequently to front page.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Yeah but you also fall for fake documentaries about how HPV
| vaccine is dangerous.
| JakeAl wrote:
| The question to ask is why a traditional protein-based platform
| isn't being tested next to the mRNA-based platform.
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