Anyone hit with the virus out there?

[DLW]

And to be clear, I am in no way, shape or form a Big Pharma shill. I hate them as much as anybody. However, my hatred for Pharma stems from their abuse of inelastic demand (i.e. people will rationally give anything and everything short of their life for a life-saving drug) and ironclad patent protections. This creates an extortionate scenario where Pharm can charge anything they want for their product to the detriment of humanity.

With all that said, there is very little benefit for Pharma to push out an ineffective or harmful drug. Sure, things slip between the cracks sometimes, but that is by far the exception to the rule.

[Willybomb]

With all that said, there is very little benefit for Pharma to push out an ineffective or harmful drug. Sure, things slip between the cracks sometimes, but that is by far the exception to the rule.

Apparently not unheard of for pharmaceuticals to release a drug (that works, but might cause massive headaches or some other side effect) so they can release another one that will minimize the side effects of the first.. (or so I'm told by someone who did a thesis on this - I have no evidence).

[WormBoy]

With all that said, there is very little benefit for Pharma to push out an ineffective or harmful drug. Sure, things slip between the cracks sometimes, but that is by far the exception to the rule.

Apparently not unheard of for pharmaceuticals to release a drug (that works, but might cause massive headaches or some other side effect) so they can release another one that will minimize the side effects of the first.. (or so I'm told by someone who did a thesis on this - I have no evidence).

It's pretty cynical to assume that side effects are actually purposefully designed into an otherwise effective drug. Pharma is pretty evil, but not as evil as the tobacco industry  . Without any evidence as support I would personally not put much faith in such a story.

[matmosphere]

With all that said, there is very little benefit for Pharma to push out an ineffective or harmful drug. Sure, things slip between the cracks sometimes, but that is by far the exception to the rule.

Apparently not unheard of for pharmaceuticals to release a drug (that works, but might cause massive headaches or some other side effect) so they can release another one that will minimize the side effects of the first.. (or so I'm told by someone who did a thesis on this - I have no evidence).

It's pretty cynical to assume that side effects are actually purposefully designed into an otherwise effective drug. Pharma is pretty evil, but not as evil as the tobacco industry  . Without any evidence as support I would personally not put much faith in such a story.

Yeah, I'd agree. There is no financial incentive for a drug company to do something like that. I am sure that there have been times that, after collecting patient data for a while, they have released new versions of drugs with fewer side effects or other improvements. Which, good for them in that case.

I don't think they'd sit on a potentially better version of something out of fear that a competitor might release a better drug anyway.

[alanp]

[gordo]

My favorite thing of the year to date :-)

[culturejam]

My mother-in-law tested positive a month ago. She's ultra careful and only goes out when absolutely necessary, so it's something of a mystery how she got it. But, she had no symptoms at all and never even would have known other than that she has been getting tested once a month because she's in a "critical" demographic due to her age.

A good college friend's mom is likely going to die in the next few days from the virus. She's now intubated and on a ventilator.

Multiple of my wife's work colleagues have parents that have been hospitalized. A few have died.

My parents have several friends who have been hospitalized with the virus, and some have died.

It's real shit.

[harryklippton]

Immunologist here. The vaccine data are better than anyone could have hoped for. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are very similar platforms (mRNA), so in essence, they are independent confirmations of each other. While the US has been an absolute shitshow for CoV2, this same shitshow is ideal for clinical trials. You need circulating virus and cases to test a vaccine. The US has plenty of that, which accelerated the trials beyond expectations. The Astroazeneca vaccine is promising, too. Early data  indicate that it has slightly lower efficacy (albeit, really good), but it is more stable and cheaper to produce. It seems this will be the form that much of the world will receive.

It's safe to say that we've moved beyond a vaccine challenge and progress to the second stage- a vaccination challenge.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Stay strong.

Hey @DLW Can you shed some light on the J+J vaccine for me? It seems news media is pushing that people shouldn't vaccine shop or that the J+J is just as good as the pfizer and moderna vaccines, yet it's supposedly much less effective. I get that from a public health standpoint, they're looking at the more vaccinated people the better but I'd still rather not have the J+J vs the alternative.

[DLW]

It's hard to deny that the Prizer/Moderna vaccines are better (i.e. effective) than J&J. How much more effective is debatable, because it is not possible to directly compare each of the trial data with one another. With that said, the most important outcomes, preventing hospitalization and death, are likely similar between all three vaccines.

Public health people/organizations are pushing the J&J vaccine, because it accomplishes the most important goal; get as many people vaccinated as soon as possible. They also probably want to avoid a class war that would happen if only the most powerful and wealthy in society received the best vaccines. My personal opinion...if I was in a high risk group, I would definitely get the P or M vaccine (which many high risk people have already done and will continue to do). Otherwise, i would take the first vaccine offered to me.

*Note* NONE of these vaccines are harmful. Only a handful (i.e. ~20 out of 50 million) of people experience serious reactions. The nonexistent to mild side effects from the vaccine are more dependent on your own immune system than the vaccine itself.

[DLW]

This necro bump is also a fantastic reminder that ~50 million people have been vaccinated in the US. There have been a very small number of severe, but treatable, reactions to vaccination. With 50 million more data points, we now know for sure that the initial trials accurately determined, if not underestimated, vaccine effectiveness.

The mRNA vaccine is the greatest scientific achievement in at least 50 years.

[TFZ]

The mRNA vaccine is the greatest scientific achievement in at least 50 years.

In that case I'm sure you'd like to learn that the vaccine isn't actually a Pfizer invention, it's from the small (compared to Pfizer anyway) company BioNtech in Germany. Its inventor is a son of turkish immigrants named Uğur Şahin, who is also one of the founders. Pfizer simply supplies production capabilites and logistics for distribution. I find it interesting how rarely this gets appreciated, instead it's always "the Pffizer vaccine" when talked about by Americans or the media.

[harryklippton]

if I was in a high risk group, I would definitely get the P or M vaccine (which many high risk people have already done and will continue to do). Otherwise, i would take the first vaccine offered to me.

Thanks. You hit on right what I was trying to figure out. It's not like I'm gonna have any choice which vaccine I get though.

[DLW]

The mRNA vaccine is the greatest scientific achievement in at least 50 years.

In that case I'm sure you'd like to learn that the vaccine isn't actually a Pfizer invention, it's from the small (compared to Pfizer anyway) company BioNtech in Germany. Its inventor is a son of turkish immigrants named Uğur Şahin, who is also one of the founders. Pfizer simply supplies production capabilites and logistics for distribution. I find it interesting how rarely this gets appreciated, instead it's always "the Pffizer vaccine" when talked about by Americans or the media.

You would think people would have their facts in order before firing off a condescending reply...
Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman are consensus co-discoverers of mRNA vaccine technology and have been developing the mRNA vaccines for 15+ years- long before Pfizer, BioNTech, or Moderna. Their research was largely performed in the US and funded by US tax payers.

Uğur Şahin is an oncologist that founded BioNTech in 2008 (note the first mRNA paper was published in Science in 1990...by researchers at UW-Madison). BioNTech doesn't have any bigger role in "the discovery" of the mRNA vaccine than Pfizer, and to say "a son of immigrants invented the mRNA vaccine" is a fairy tale. In fact, i'd say the senior vice president of BioNTech had a bigger role in the discovery of mRNA vaccines... that's right, the senior VP of BioNTech is Katalin Kariko.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243

[peAk]

So the Texas Governor removed the mask mandate today

Golly gee, how friggin great.

SMH

[TFZ]

The mRNA vaccine is the greatest scientific achievement in at least 50 years.

In that case I'm sure you'd like to learn that the vaccine isn't actually a Pfizer invention, it's from the small (compared to Pfizer anyway) company BioNtech in Germany. Its inventor is a son of turkish immigrants named Uğur Şahin, who is also one of the founders. Pfizer simply supplies production capabilites and logistics for distribution. I find it interesting how rarely this gets appreciated, instead it's always "the Pffizer vaccine" when talked about by Americans or the media.

You would think people would have their facts in order before firing off a condescending reply...
Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman are consensus co-discoverers of mRNA vaccine technology and have been developing the mRNA vaccines for 15+ years- long before Pfizer, BioNTech, or Moderna. Their research was largely performed in the US and funded by US tax payers.

Uğur Şahin is an oncologist that founded BioNTech in 2008 (note the first mRNA paper was published in Science in 1990...by researchers at UW-Madison). BioNTech doesn't have any bigger role in "the discovery" of the mRNA vaccine than Pfizer, and to say "a son of immigrants invented the mRNA vaccine" is a fairy tale. In fact, i'd say the senior vice president of BioNTech had a bigger role in the discovery of mRNA vaccines... that's right, the senior VP of BioNTech is Katalin Kariko.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243

I was talking about the particular vaccine, I specifically said "the Pfizer vaccine", not the technology per se. Your anger seems to be misplaced, nothing of what I wrote was condescending in any way, I was merely stating a fact that many are overlooking.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/10/europe/biontech-pfizer-vaccine-team-couple-intl/index.html
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-biontech-founder-ugur-sahin-says-first-uk-patients-could-be-vaccinated-next-month-12130523
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/11/biontech-the-european-company-behind-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine.html
https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/other/meet-the-couple-who-invented-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine/ar-BB1aUJG7
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13153699/pfizer-covid-vaccine-biontech-ugur-sahin-ozlem-tureci/