Importance of vaccination and masking

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

20 hours ago, billvon said:

There is some evidence that that is true - and that heterologous vaccinations (i.e. first one J+J, second one Pfizer) confer greater immunity.

Those are questions a longer development & trial would have answered.

What's the optimal time between the 2 shots?
How long will the immunity last?
Is there an advantage to mixing & matching different brands for the 2 shots?

When vaccines take years to develop & get approved, those questions get answered.

In the current situation, they established safety (mostly) and effectiveness and let it go at that.

Given how many had died, I have zero problems with that.

[billvon 2,396]

2 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Those are questions a longer development & trial would have answered.

What's the optimal time between the 2 shots?
How long will the immunity last?
Is there an advantage to mixing & matching different brands for the 2 shots?

The last is a question that would likely never be answered in "normal" times.  Ordinarily drug companies fund drug development and testing - and there is zero incentive for J+J to test to see if adding a Pfizer booster to their vaccination is safe or effective.

However, these aren't normal times, and I could see the government throwing money at this and getting it done.

 

[headoverheels 291]

Here is some data showing good correlation between neutralizing antibodies and protection from symptomatic infection:

 

[JoeWeber 2,298]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

The last is a question that would likely never be answered in "normal" times.  Ordinarily drug companies fund drug development and testing - and there is zero incentive for J+J to test to see if adding a Pfizer booster to their vaccination is safe or effective.

However, these aren't normal times, and I could see the government throwing money at this and getting it done.

 

Who needs the government when lot's of folks are doing it on their own. Even in the stage three trials some participants did anti-body testing to see if they were in the placebo group. We'll google our way out of this, just be a patient.

[yoink 321]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

.

However, these aren't normal times, and I could see the government throwing money at this and getting it done.

 

There are studies already being done on it.

I’d sign up if I knew I wasn’t going to get the placebo.

[jakee 1,254]

16 hours ago, base698 said:

 The cheerleading and trust for an industry that killed 500,000 people of all ages with safe and non-addictive Oxy and routinely hides and misleads with results to make a little more profit as people die is interesting. 

On the flip side, I've never met anyone who has polio, or smallpox, or cholera, or TB. This is the industry responsible for that too.

[kallend 1,623]

7 hours ago, jakee said:

On the flip side, I've never met anyone who has polio, or smallpox, or cholera, or TB. This is the industry responsible for that too.

I've met several polio victims and one TB.  I've had measles, mumps and pertussis.

Of course, these were all my age (75) or older, who got the diseases before vaccines were available.

[Phil1111 910]

7 hours ago, jakee said:

On the flip side, I've never met anyone who has polio, or smallpox, or cholera, or TB. This is the industry responsible for that too.

8,916: number of reported TB cases in the United States in 2019 (a rate of 2.7 per 100,000 persons)

Up to 13 million: estimated number of people in the United States living with latent TB infection

"Worldwide each year there are approximately 400,000 cases of MDR-TB (multi drug resistant)tuberculosis, strains that are resistant to the first-line and most effective TB drugs, and often select second-line drugs. Due to the relative weakness of second- and third-line drugs, effective treatment of MDR-TB often requires an 18-24 month course of rigorously managed, directly observed therapy. XDR-TB strains are only susceptible to questionably effective third-line drugs. Because of this, XDR-TB requires a longer course of drugs and often times surgery if treatment is effective at all. Russia has a 14 percent prevalence of XDR-TB among TB positive patients, one of the highest rates in the world."

Its not common but more than some people think.

Then there is Polio: "Naseer was pacing outside the operating room in a Peshawar hospital. Inside, surgeons were trying to extract a bullet from his wife's leg and grenade shrapnel from his son and a young relative. They had been wounded when the Taliban attacked their house.

Then Naseer's cell phone rang. "This is the Taliban. Give us $2,500 or we'll kill you and your family."

"What do you mean?" Naseer yelled. "You already tried to kill us!"

"You think bullets are free like the air?" Naseer recalls the Taliban commander saying. "That attack on your house cost us money. Pay us or we'll finish the job."

Naseer and his wife had been working to midnight the day before as polio vaccinators.

Evidently the Taliban like the GOP take anti-vax ideology seriously. "Online anti-vax communities, most of which are on Facebook, have taken on a very different tone. Instead of fretting over unwholesome additives in vaccines, members now rant about government overreach. They describe schools’ immunization rules as an assault on their freedom, and they swap theories about how Bill Gates is working with the government to control citizens with microchips, says Limaye. They’re “railing against the government and pharma companies controlling the population.”

Sound like some around here.

[kallend 1,623]

56 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

8,916: number of reported TB cases in the United States in 2019 (a rate of 2.7 per 100,000 persons)

 

US TB cases In 2019 (CDC data):
 

• 71.4% were reported among non-U.S.–born persons
• 20.7% reported having diabetes
• 8.1% reported excessive alcohol use
• 4.7% were co-infected with HIV
• 7.5% reported using noninjectable drugs, and 1.2% reported using injectable drugs
• 4.6% reported experiencing homelessness in the past year
• 3.1% were residents of correctional settings at time of diagnosis

[nwt 131]

15 hours ago, headoverheels said:

Here is some data showing good correlation between neutralizing antibodies and protection from symptomatic infection:

 

I'll admit that I didn't dig into it, but at first glance this appears to me to say that the initial antibody response correlates with protection, but it does not seem to imply anything about what happens after antibody levels wane.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

Hi folks,

One thing about the military, they can make decisions:  Marine Corps corporal receives lightning-fast dismissal over refusal to wear a mask (msn.com)

Jerry Baumchen

[olofscience 420]

6 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

Sound like some around here.

The weird thing is that there were 4 companies implicated in the Opoid crisis, and only one of them (Johnson & Johnson) is now involved in manufacturing the vaccines. And most of the attacks are on Pfizer and AstraZeneca, not J&J...not that I'm expecting them to be able to tell the difference.

Edited September 1, 2021 by olofscience

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

30 minutes ago, olofscience said:

The weird thing is that there were 4 companies implicated in the Opoid crisis, and only one of them (Johnson & Johnson) is now involved in manufacturing the vaccines. And most of the attacks are on Pfizer and AstraZeneca, not J&J...not that I'm expecting them to be able to tell the difference.

Hi olof,

Re:  there were 4 companies implicated in the Opoid crisis

And, some update on that issue, with an Oregon slant:  Judge approves Purdue Pharma opioid settlement; Sackler family owners will give up control, get immunity - oregonlive.com

Jerry Baumchen

[Phil1111 910]

21 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi olof,

Re:  there were 4 companies implicated in the Opoid crisis

And, some update on that issue, with an Oregon slant:  Judge approves Purdue Pharma opioid settlement; Sackler family owners will give up control, get immunity - oregonlive.com

Jerry Baumchen

Just today: Purdue Pharma Is Dissolved and Sacklers Pay $4.5 Billion to Settle Opioid Claims

"Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin, was dissolved on Wednesday in a wide-ranging bankruptcy settlement that will also require the company’s owners, members of the Sackler family, to turn over billions($4.5 over nine years) of their fortune to address the deadly opioid epidemic.

But the agreement includes a much-disputed condition: It largely absolves the Sacklers of Purdue opioid-related liability. And as such, they will remain among the richest families in the country."

It seems to me that the liabilities of synthetic opioids would exceed that.

The justice system not "big pharma" is to blame for the personal liability protections to the Sacklers. But the issue is what did they know and when did they know it.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Phil1111

[ryoder 1,382]

54 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

The justice system not "big pharma" is to blame for the personal liability protections to the Sacklers. But the issue is what did they know and when did they know it.

Just watch this:

HBO: The Crime of the Century

They knew exactly what they were doing.

[wmw999 2,121]

I don’t doubt it. If he’d through his personal efforts thoroughly taken down the Sacklers, I might have voted for Trump. 
Crime still pays if you’re rich enough. 
Wendy P. 

[TriGirl 268]

On 8/31/2021 at 6:00 AM, Baksteen said:

Lastly, I'm pro-vaccinating third world regions (which seem to include some regions in practically every first- and second world country as well) before mandating extra boosters.

As someone currently living in one of those 3rd world countries, I am inclined to agree — except that most of them have not cleared the Pfizer of Moderna vaccines for use. They receive AstraZeneca, SinoPharm and J&J either from the COVAX facility (at least in my current country of residence provides doses predominantly funded by the US), or direct donation deliveries.  Though WHO has a longer list of vaccines it has approved, it’s taking a lot more effort to get them approved locally.

 

In a place like this, I would be perfectly happy to get my Pfizer booster at the 8-month mark as long as I’m swimming in this crowded sea of an unvaccinated and still untested population.