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Txzen

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Posts posted by Txzen

  1. On 5/6/2021 at 1:22 PM, Scheiss Meister said:

    I'm very sorry to hear that.  Cancer stole my mother, and tried to get my brother.  Cancer needs to fuck right off.

    PS - I know that there has to be at least a poster or two on this site who are neck deep in the fight with that old bastard.  Much respect to all who treat or care for cancer patients, and all of the researchers who keep improving the odds of beating cancer every year.  You all rock.

    Yeah, I fit that bill - about 18 years in industry cancer drug R&D as a scientist. Cruel irony is that my mother was just diagnosed with lung cancer this week. I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse that I know as much as I do. 

    It’s taken close friends, close colleagues and now is after my own family. Cancer sucks. No two ways about it. 
     

    I would also add a shout out to all the nurses who care for those stricken with this beast. They are absolute angels. 

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  2. On 5/6/2021 at 11:02 AM, midtown said:

    Hey pharma companies we need a new drug therapy or vaccine for a new disease and if you spend billions to develop it we might take away your patents.   Are you up for that?

    And as I think I mentioned before I work with a lot of PhD's as 403b clients at a university whose basketball coach we just stole but I don't want to mention the school.  I've been on calls with them and when I ask the professors, deans etc of medical and biology colleges what they think of mRna they become almost speechless with the science breakthrough.   They are outright giddy at the future applications.

    I want to be this enthusiastic. Indeed, the global pharma community (full disclosure of which I am a part of) managed a multi prong approach to vaccinate the world in about a year. I really wasn’t sure if the RNA vaccines would work, and I sure am happy they do. 
     

    Certainly massively more efficient to scale up than the traditional flu vaccines (they are grown in chicken eggs, for crying out loud). Damn pleased at the seemingly robust responses we’ve seen. Jury is a little out on the longevity of response in my book (though perhaps it’s easy to do a yearly booster for whatever new variant comes up). A little concerned about some of the strong reactions documented by about 30% of people - being laid out for a day or two. Not sure if that gets worse with repeated vaccinations, or if those reactions prompt people to shy away from a subsequent shot. 
     

    Heroic global distribution and storage effort as well - don’t discount that at all. 

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  3. 4 hours ago, Hook1997 said:

    Ok don’t take this guys advice I’ll give you that....   is worried about passing people on the pch and hasn’t driven any of the section you actually asked about but has advice lol.   Also the midcoast Cali area is ok at best and a dessert compared to the rest. 

    Can you try that again using complete sentences? He said his backup was driving PCH1 up from Oxnard. I was speaking to that. 

  4. I totally get the appeal of driving PCH from one end to the other. As someone who has done it in part or whole a few times in the last 10 years between LA and parts just north of SF, it can be a taxing, frustrating drive choked with traffic. You get behind some slow trucks or vehicles, and it really can spoil the experience.  The immediate area north of Jenner (contains some of the more hair-raising bits which are not at all fun if anyone in your car has any vertigo or fear of heights. Still, as much as I try to downplay the experience, I get it. I personally think that central coast area is amazing - Santa Barbara is what every really wants when the think of golden CA beaches and wine country (Buelton, Los Olivos), and the PCH area around Cambria is really nice. If you start from SoCal, I'd not bother with PCH and just figure out how to get to Cambria the most efficient way possible and start your journey there.

    I've not driven it north of Mendocino, but am told that arguably the section from mid-Oregon to Eureka is very scenic (perhaps the nicest stretch of it all), and I wonder if you might get the best experience by focusing the driving bit to a smaller section with some overnight stays in small beach towns?

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  5. On 3/19/2021 at 8:43 AM, Anastasis said:

    Are there any vaccines against viral diseases that don't also effectively prevent asymptomatic transmission?

    Yeah, influenza is a great example link

    Quote

    Although sterilizing immunity—preventing infection entirely—is a desirable goal for influenza vaccines, not every vaccine can or even must achieve it to confer meaningful clinical benefit. Currently licensed pneumococcal vaccines confer only modest protection against Streptococcus pneumoniae pneumonia in adults. However, the rarer and more fatal complication of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) is reduced by approximately three-quarters in vaccinated elderly adults [50,51,52]. Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), an attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis, has been administered to nearly 4 billion people worldwide since 1921, primarily to young children in whom it is highly effective at preventing the potentially fatal complication of disseminated tuberculosis. However, BCG vaccination does not prevent acquisition of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), its protection is not long-lasting, and it is relatively ineffective when given to adults, particularly in preventing the reactivation of LTBI into active pulmonary tuberculosis [53]. However, the drastic reduction in pediatric mortality that BCG provides makes the vaccine both clinically effective and cost effective in parts of the world where M. tuberculosis remains endemic [54].

    The whole review is a pretty good read. I've also seen a paper where the intranasal flu vaccine was more effective at inducing sterilizing immunity than the intramuscular version, but can't seem to find it at the moment. 

    But as mentioned, the continued requirement for masks has much more to do with the fact that places like states are only single-digit vaccination status, as well as to prevent the Karens from non-compliance by claiming to be vaccinated.

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  6. 19 hours ago, Richard Kimball said:

    If there's one thing most people don't expect, it's having an engine come flying through the front door of their apartment and hitting them.

    spanish-inquisition.jpg

    Was thinking more like this

    58192a42-0842-4801-8125-1969ecfab9b7_scr

    You can't cook a piston engine!

    Well, you can't eat it raw. . .

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  7. 43 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

    So this strain was identified 10 months ago and been around here since May?  I'm gonna go with shades of clickbait.  That said I think we should all fully expect that like the flu this virus will mutate and reduce vaccine "effectiveness". That said effectiveness I believe is measured in terms of yes/no does it stop you from getting it.  I think like people can still get certain strains of the flu after vaccination that often the vaccine does help mitigate the severity (for example my daughter was vaccinated for flu in 2019...got it TWICE in late 19 and early 20 and neither time was of much consequence) Not to mention I am sure like flu they will continue to reformulate the vaccine to the latest and greatest strains that pose the most risk

    I'm gonna withhold running around naked and screaming we are all gonna die for now.  Who is with me?

    I think the issue is that there's no selective pressure to push for a higher prevalence of this potentially new mutated strain, which is why perhaps it hasn't increased in frequency since first identified. If it continues to increase following wide-spread vaccination, that's probably quite telling. 

    For example, it wasn't initially clear what the impact of the other mutant strain which was also first identified this summer, but the fact that it was increasing in prevalence suggested at the time that this was happening for a reason, and in fact we know now there's some advantageous biology at play here with regard to much higher transmittability. 

    That's the most frustrating thing for me with the vaccines - we have to knock this thing down, because the longer it gets passed around, the greater the chance we see something like a mutant spike protein which confers resistance to the vaccines at hand. I don't think we know that yet with this bugger, though. 

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  8. Yep - trying to get my mom in (she's 1B) for Delco through APH. After doing the online reg, it says congrats, go sign up for a slot. The only day that shows availability online is Jan 15, with 30 min slots from 9-6. Clicking any of them returns the message 'this slot is full'. 

     

    But I kept clicking them and one finally confirmed the registration. 

     

    Keep at it. . . 

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  9. On 1/3/2021 at 2:37 PM, Pato del Muerto said:

    Someone tell me why it matters which strain is predominant at any given time.  My understanding was that the new strain is no more virulent than the other, just more contagious. 

    Based on what is known now, that appears to be true. That's not necessarily a good thing. A good rundown was in the Atlantic from Adam Kucharski (UK infectious disease expert), quoted here link. He compares what would happen with the death rate for a 50% increase in lethality versus a 50% increase in transmissibility (but no impact in lethality). 

    Quote

    Kucharski compares a 50 percent increase in virus lethality to a 50 percent increase in virus transmissibility. Take a virus reproduction rate of about 1.1 and an infection fatality risk of 0.8 percent and imagine 10,000 active infections—a plausible scenario for many European cities, as Kucharski notes. As things stand, with those numbers, we’d expect 129 deaths in a month. If the fatality rate increased by 50 percent, that would lead to 193 deaths. In contrast, a 50 percent increase in transmissibility would lead to a whopping 978 deaths in just one month—assuming, in both scenarios, a six-day infection-generation time.

     

  10. It's excellent, though it helps to watch Kane immediately before to remind yourself. Had to stop in the middle to read some Wikis on the 1934 California gubernatorial race. Gorgeous to look at, well written and acted. Really enjoyed it. 

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  11. No, and the recognition of 'self' nucleic acids is definitely a pathway for the onset of autoimmune disease. Basically, if a cell dies quietly, you're less likely to have issues. But apoptosis in the context of other inflammatory signals can definitely break self-tolerance. 

  12. The recognition of nucleic acids is a pretty old and evolutionarily conserved arm of the immune system, regulated by receptors called 'Toll Like Receptors' (named because the German scientist who discovered them in the lab called them 'toll', meaning 'cool'.). Their whole role is to recognize 'coatings' that are used by bacteria, or nucleic acids (single, or double-stranded RNA) used by viruses or bacteria. 

    While the nanoparticle coating could potentially diminish 'free' RNA from floating around, I'm not sure that's the mechanism here as TLR receptors cycle into the intracellular space, basically to monitor for the presence of infection. This pathway gets abnormal in people with autoimmune disease, for instance, where the body starts making an immune response to normal cellular RNA and DNA (like in lupus). Basically, there immune system evolved to deal with the threat of nucleic acids floating around that don't belong there. 

    I think what's being seen with those with severe allergic hypersensitivity will see it with either RNA vaccine, or at least thats my guess. Again, these are people who have such hypersensitivity they have to travel around with EpiPens, so it's not just people like me that sneeze in contact with anything flowering or furry. 

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  13. 2 hours ago, Bevo said:

    That doesn't make much sense. The Pfizer vaccine is naked mRNA. Moderna is the one that is using lipids and other carriers. Obviously, it is true. I just don't get it. Anyway, I'm in the same boat as you and I'm not too worried. Does it say if the cases were immediately after injection? Just curious whether it is due to the injection or when the body starts producing the spike protein.

    Naked mRNA is a hell of an immune stimulant. 

  14. Can totally understand the fears of a 'new' vaccine - though my fears are more around the logistics and handling of it as it's so new (though apparently Moderna has some shit figured out, so bravo). 

    The important thing to remember is that mRNA vaccines are by their very nature transient - this doesn't integrate into your genome, rather it hangs around in your cells and spits out protein. 

    For me the only other fear is that being vaccinated does not make you COVID 'sterile' - this is particularly the case when you have a respiratory disease and vaccinate intramuscularly, rather than intranasal. There's good evidence from the flu and other similar diseases that while you may be vaccinated, you could still harbor and carry it. I think this is a far lower spreading risk than the unvaccinated asymptomatic carrier, but it's a thing. Not sure what that means going forward with COVID protocol in nursing homes, for instance.

    Great review of mRNA vaccines here mRNA vaccines — a new era in vaccinology (Nature)

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  15. 2 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    That sounds about right with regard to Pfizer. Although, many hospitals would have -70 so maybe you can use those sites as vaccine centers and avoid trying to distribute through CVS, Walgreens and other normal channels. Obviously, Pfizer has thought this through and plan on giving it to healthcare workers first and maybe this will buy them time to figure out the distribution to everyone else. As long as there isn't panic in the streets with a slow rollout, I'm not too worried.

    On the national news, there was an interview with someone (didn't catch if she was an actual representative from CVS or just some random yahoo - perhaps the latter) who stated that they'd have to resort to dry ice for the Pfizer vaccine, which I think is not going to work. Sounds like Moderna has it figured out, though it would be great to learn more. 

  16. I've done a little of all of those at different stops in industry. More years than I'd like to admit to at this point. 

    For Moderna, I'm really curious about the 'special sauce' with regard to their formation which they claim allows them to store at 4C for up to 7 days. Something to do with their nanoparticle formulation, though that explanation doesn't quite do it for me (sounds like some other alternations to the mRNA itself?). I think storage and distribution for the Pfizer one is a logistical nightmare. I'd be concerned that you'd need to re-train all the staff handling it as their normal SOP is so different. 

     

    Why Does Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine Need To Be Kept Colder Than Antarctica?

    Moderna Announces Longer Shelf Life for its COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate at Refrigerated Temperatures

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