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Great news. Seems better than the Pfizer vaccine, especially because transportation of the vaccine seems easier (the vaccine can be transported at a much higher

Great news. Seems better than the Pfizer vaccine, especially because transportation of the vaccine seems easier (the vaccine can be transported at a much higher temperature, -7C instead of -80C out the top of my head). Both vaccines seem to require 2 doses a couple of weeks apart which is unfortunate but workable. But... How long does the immunity last? We now know 6 months, but what about after that? What are the long term side effects? Does it prevent spreading (read: keep wearing masks after vaccination) or does it "only" prevent symptoms? If you don't get what I'm talking about: look up asymptomatic shedding. Kids do it all the time with SARS-CoV2 [0]. Answer: we don't know. Let's not rush this. Also interesting to note: so we can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? It doesn't have to take 10 years if we really want to eradicate a disease badly enough? My conclusion: we're under-funding research in microbiology. "We" as in: the entire world. In general. The Moderna press release: https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/modernas-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-meets-its-primary-efficacy https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d... The best source for all things microbiology and Covid (not just SARS-CoV2) that I know of: https://microbe.tv/twiv https://microbe.tv/twiv [0] 6-Fold Higher SARS-CoV-2 Exposure Rate than Reported Cases in Children: https://www.cell.com/med/pdf/S2666-6340(20)30020-9.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666634020300209%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/med/pdf/S2666-6340(20)30020-9.pdf?_retu...

kbuchanan 6y ago
You may be right about funding, but it can also be attributed to incentives: has our desire to eradicate a disease ever been expressed in such an intense way, with the benefits being so enormous?
lbeltrame 6y ago
> How long does the immunity last? If we consider that recovered patients are immune between 6 and 8 months at least, that timeframe seems likely. > What are the long term side effects? I keep on asking myself. What vaccines do truly exhibit long term side effects? Narcolepsy with the 2009 swine flu vaccine or the Guillain-Barré syndrome for the 1976 flu vaccine do not fit the bill, because they actually showed up in the early months after administration (although some were found out later).
- bboygravity 6y ago
  > I keep on asking myself. What vaccines do truly exhibit long term side effects? Dengvaxia also comes to mind. Weird corner cases that only show up after an accelerated phase 3 trial when you start vaccinating way more than 30k people. Same goes for the Guillain-Barré syndrome cases which are estimated at about 1 in 100.000 persons vaccinated. If the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines are able to cause any trouble that is as common as that, we would very likely have no idea right now based on the data that exists.
  - jacob019 6y ago
    My risk of dying from COVID is higher than that. Sign me up.
  - collyw 6y ago
    UK is already expecting a high number of adverse reactions. http://tapnewswire.com/2020/11/uk-government-expected-high-volume-of-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-drug-reaction/ http://tapnewswire.com/2020/11/uk-government-expected-high-v...
  - JunkDNA 6y ago
    It was a murky situation, but LYMErix comes to mind: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/
    - lbeltrame 6y ago
      Thanks, very informative. I wasn't aware about that one.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hashtagmarkup 6y ago
This isn't about funding... this is about taking a giant leap into mRNA vaccines, that until now have not been approved for human use. We aren't injecting processed proteins into our bloodstream to trigger and train our immune systems... We are reprogramming our bodies into vaccine factories.
- collyw 6y ago
  Not sure what you are being downvoted for. Your tone may seem pretty alarmist (but that has been the norm for anything cornoa related). Otherwise it's true.
  - enchiridion 6y ago
    Not at all and expert, but I think the idea of reprogramming is wrong, as it implies the vaccine is editing DNA (source code). mRNA vaccines are more analogous to temporarily running a subroutine.
    - polishdude20 6y ago
      Yeah like letting a craftsman use your backyard shed as a woodshop for a few weeks.
      - hashtagmarkup 6y ago
        Except your "backyard shed" is actually an uncountable number of your cells that are "edited" (changed using the reprogramming abilities inherent to mRNA, but god forbid you refer to it as such) into not being "backyard sheds" anymore, but being factories for spike proteins that can't be stopped other than waiting for the fire to burn out. After a few weeks, you don't get your "backyard shed" back, because the craftsman destroyed it.
    - klmr 6y ago
      “Reprogramming” actually has a specific meaning in genetics, and it’s not editing of DNA, it’s the editing of (transient, i.e. epigenetic) DNA modifications. It’s definitely true that this is not what RNA vaccines are doing. But I guess the parent comment was using “reprogramming our bodies into vaccine factories” as a hand-waving description rather than a technically precise term. And that description is then roughly correct: with RNA vaccines, it is correct to say that our bodies are being triggered to produce the actual “vaccine” themselves; namely (at least in one type of RNA vaccine), the body’s cells are translating the injected mRNA to produce antigens, which is what a conventional vaccine contains, and which, in turn, produces an immune response.
monoideism 6y ago
It's not underfunding of drug research and development. It's the FDA restrictions, which have been relaxed for this drug, and they've been expedited through the approval process. So maybe more funding for FDA, contingent upon them speeding up the process.
hailwren 6y ago
Is it possible to spread a virus without an infection? It seems like other than being a surface, any ability to spread would be predicated on also testing positive for the virus -- wouldn't it?
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  > Is it possible to spread a virus without an infection? No, but it's possible to spread a virus without having symptoms, without feeling sick or requiring medical attention. i.e. mild, asymptomatic infection.
- bboygravity 6y ago
  No, it is not possible to spread virus without being infected. But... It is certainly possible to spread virus without having any symptoms. Like children do with SARS-CoV2. All the time. Source: https://www.cell.com/med/pdf/S2666-6340(20)30020-9.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666634020300209%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/med/pdf/S2666-6340(20)30020-9.pdf?_retu... You can be infected, shed tons of virus and not have any symptoms.
newacct583 6y ago
> Does it prevent spreading (read: keep wearing masks after vaccination) or does it "only" prevent symptoms? There would be no reasonable mechanism for a vaccine that prevents infection but somehow still allows "spreading". Either you're sick or your not, the immune system doesn't "prevent symptoms" (strictly: it's the cause of them). This isn't how things work. As far as "long term side effects"... that's also an extremely rare kind of interaction. Vaccine delivery is extraordinarily safe. I worry that your phrasing is invoking anti-vax paranoia.
- bboygravity 6y ago
  > There would be no reasonable mechanism for a vaccine that prevents infection but somehow still allows "spreading". Sure. I agree. But there are mechanisms for a vaccine to prevent symptoms and still allow for some infection and spreading. > Either you're sick or your not, the immune system doesn't "prevent symptoms" (strictly: it's the cause of them). You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Being sick = having symptoms = the immune system being (overly) active. The main goal of all the vaccines under development is to prevent the immune system becoming overly active (AKA: fight the symptoms). Not necessarily to prevent any virus from being made in the body and being spread. Although we all hope that it also prevents spreading, it's not a given and it's not proven to do so (yet). It's perfectly possible to be infected and infectious without "being sick" (no symptoms). Children do it all the time with SARS-CoV2. > As far as "long term side effects"... that's also an extremely rare kind of interaction. We're about to vaccinate some 5 Billion people. That means we have to take into consideration "extremely rare" kind of interactions. Especially if you don't want to feed the anti-vax conspiracy theories. > I worry that your phrasing is invoking anti-vax paranoia. I worry that releasing the vaccine too soon could invoke irreparable anti-vax paranoia. I'm all for the vaccine and I would be willing to participate in the trials (if they had space available). But I don't think that it's a good idea to just rush this vaccine and start immunizing the herd en-masse with the risk of serious disease in 1 in 100k people (for example). Now that would really feed the anti-vax paranoia.
  - abduhl 6y ago
    What, specifically, are those mechanisms that you think prevent symptoms but allow for infection and spreading? Additionally, even if this mechanism exists, why would we care? The goal is not eradication of the virus at a molecular level, it is stopping the disease at a societal level. Stopping the disease is accomplished when symptoms are prevented. Because symptoms kill people, not the virus. There is an incredible misunderstanding about the difference between a disease (i.e., symptoms caused by a virus) and the virus that causes it. Viruses, bacteria, spores, and other toxic material is everywhere constantly. COVID is the only virus I can think of where we have been actively scared of the mere existence of the virus.
SamBam 6y ago
> Does it prevent spreading (read: keep wearing masks after vaccination) or does it "only" prevent symptoms? I don't believe there is any vaccine in the world that would act like this, since that's not how the immune system works.
- mansr 6y ago
  Early polio vaccines did.
  - SamBam 6y ago
    Source? I skimmed through "History of polio vaccination" [1] and didn't see anything about that. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782271/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782271/
    - mansr 6y ago
      I happened to read it here recently: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/02/how-good-is-the-polio-vaccine/303946/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/02/how-goo... No, that's not a scholarly article.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
> Also interesting to note: so we can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? It's a new type of vaccine that's never been approved before, apparently simpler to develop: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/16/21569345/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-coronavirus-efficacy-announcement https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/16/21569345/moderna-covid-1... > Moderna was the first vaccine to enter clinical trials back in March. Only 63 days after the genetic sequence of the virus was posted online, the company injected the first volunteer with their candidate. They were able to move so quickly because they used a gene-based technology to create their vaccine. Those types of vaccines are relatively simple to create once researchers know the viral gene they’re trying to target. > Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine was built using the same method. The two are made from tiny pieces of mRNA, which gives the human body instructions to produce copies of the coronavirus spike protein. Then, the immune system learns to defend against that protein. Gene-based vaccines are the long-promised future of vaccine development, but they’ve never been approved for use in people by the Food and Drug Administration. The early successes of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are a promising sign for the method. And of course, being in the middle of a pandemic 'helps', in terms of funding, clearing red tape, and also seeing results in testing (with so many people being infected, you can start to see differences between placebo and not-placebo groups much more quickly).
- bboygravity 6y ago
  Sure, but what about the other 10's to 100's of Corona vaccines that are currently undergoing phase 2 and 3 trials? I'm not convinced by the argument that developing and approving a vaccine this fast is mainly possible because of technological advances that happen to be in sync with the pandemic.
  - Ensorceled 6y ago
    It's NOT the development that is fast ... it's the green lighting for proceeding through the phases. The FDA accelerating these trials very much "happen to be in sync with the pandemic"
    - 6y ago
bronlund 6y ago
We do know that this vaccine is highly experimental and never been tried on humans before. We know they have tried this on animals and we know that in several studies they are reporting severe long-term side effects.
ben_w 6y ago
> Also interesting to note: so we can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? It doesn't have to take 10 years if we really want to eradicate a disease? My conclusion: we're under-funding research in microbiology. "We" as in: the entire world. Perhaps, perhaps not. This is far outside my field of expertise, but here is an analogy: the fact I released 9 games in 9 months a decade ago does not imply that all games can be coded, foley-ed, and art-ed, in one month by a junior developer with Eclipse, Photoshop Elements, Bryce, and Audacity. I assume there are many diseases where the treatment is the equivalent of an indie platformer while others are the equivalent of a AAA-headliner and yet more are the equivalent of currently fictional games like The Oasis.
pjc50 6y ago
> we're under-funding research in microbiology. "We" as in: the entire world. In general. Yes, definitely? Someone I know in immunology reported that only 5% of grant proposals received funding. There are absolutely huge areas that would benefit from more funding.
- kortilla 6y ago
  > Someone I know in immunology reported that only 5% of grant proposals received funding. And what percent deserve funding? Given the incremental publish or perish nature of academia most of it likely isn’t (if it’s anything like the other sciences).
  - the_french 6y ago
    Part of that pressure comes from the lack of funding though. When you have to fight against 100 other applications for a grant showing you have a recent track record of well-cited papers helps you stand out. If researchers had steadier access to funding there would be less pressure to constantly publish 'breakthroughs' to secure next years funding.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      Publish or perish applies to tenure, not funding so much.
  - eecc 6y ago
    In my experience, when resources become too scarce and competition too tight, actors start working on the surest bets, or playing the authority card or the most sensational moonshots. IOW, real science gets shown the door and politicking sets up camp.
yskchu 6y ago
Yes, Moderna said it expected the vaccine could be shipped and stored for up to six months at minus 20C It can even remain stable once thawed for 30 days if refrigerated at between 2C and 8C This is much much easier to transport/manage compared to the Pfizer vaccine (store at -75, survive only 5 days after thaw in normal fridge)
blhack 6y ago
A major reason that this happened so fast is due the US government’s operation warp speed program. Moderna worked with NIAID on this vaccine closely, and the us gov funded it without regard for if it actually worked or not. So it’s funding...but it seems extremely unlikely that we would fund most other diseases this way. The way warp speed works is that the federal government funds the vaccine even if it doesn’t work. This allows the drug maker to work faster because they don’t have to worry about losing billions of dollars on a vaccine that does nothing. The federal government eats the risk. It’s was a really good strategy for the vaccine development and I think the federal team deserves a lot of credit for where we are with the vaccines.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Getting downvoted for giving Trump credit even where it’s due. Yikes.
  - blhack 6y ago
    The thing is: I’m not even giving trump credit here. There are hundred or maybe even thousands of people working in the federal government on warp speed.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      But you should know better than to have anything other than total condemnation for anything even adjacent to the Trump administration! If people react this strongly to something as non-controversial and objectively true, it’s no wonder that people might be suspicious about some vote tally accuracy in certain critical districts.
  - zzzeek 6y ago
    "Fauci also told CNN that Trump has not attended a meeting of the White House coronavirus taskforce in months. CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment." get real. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/15/dr-fauci-trump-should-work-with-biden-transition-team-on-coronavirus.html?__source=google%7Ceditorspicks%7C&par=google https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/15/dr-fauci-trump-should-work-w...
Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
> so we [the world] can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? Approving vaccines could be done in days, if we are willing to ignore the obvious problem of that approval being completely worthless. Situations like the current one with a heavily incentivized race to the mass market are favoring crooks willing to fudge tests. In the last two decades multiple bad actors (GKV, Ranbaxy, Cetero) had been found in the economy of clinical trials. Due diligence takes time.
rocqua 6y ago
> Also interesting to note: so we can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? It doesn't have to take 10 years if we really want to eradicate a disease badly enough? My conclusion: we're under-funding research in microbiology. "We" as in: the entire world. In general. Given the harm caused by this vaccine, we consider a higher cost of development to be acceptable. That includes monetary cost, the cost of redirecting many other research resources to this research, and the potential cost of rushing development with less testing than normal. This is all sane to do, because corona also has a really high cost. Other diseases have a much lower cost, and hence investing less in them makes sense. Sure, the world could probably focus all its attention on fixing a disease, and make meaningful process. But what would the world have to give up in order to do that? Would that trade-off be worth it. With Corona, it becomes worth it a lot sooner than with something else.
- hackerfromthefu 6y ago
  A lot of the medical industry is about creating ongoing revenue streams rather than curing the causes of illness.

kbuchanan 6y ago

You may be right about funding, but it can also be attributed to incentives: has our desire to eradicate a disease ever been expressed in such an intense way, with the benefits being so enormous?

lbeltrame 6y ago

> How long does the immunity last? If we consider that recovered patients are immune between 6 and 8 months at least, that timeframe seems likely. > What are the long term side effects? I keep on asking myself. What vaccines do truly exhibit long term side effects? Narcolepsy with the 2009 swine flu vaccine or the Guillain-Barré syndrome for the 1976 flu vaccine do not fit the bill, because they actually showed up in the early months after administration (although some were found out later).

bboygravity 6y ago
> I keep on asking myself. What vaccines do truly exhibit long term side effects? Dengvaxia also comes to mind. Weird corner cases that only show up after an accelerated phase 3 trial when you start vaccinating way more than 30k people. Same goes for the Guillain-Barré syndrome cases which are estimated at about 1 in 100.000 persons vaccinated. If the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines are able to cause any trouble that is as common as that, we would very likely have no idea right now based on the data that exists.
- jacob019 6y ago
  My risk of dying from COVID is higher than that. Sign me up.
- collyw 6y ago
  UK is already expecting a high number of adverse reactions. http://tapnewswire.com/2020/11/uk-government-expected-high-volume-of-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-drug-reaction/ http://tapnewswire.com/2020/11/uk-government-expected-high-v...
- JunkDNA 6y ago
  It was a murky situation, but LYMErix comes to mind: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/
  - lbeltrame 6y ago
    Thanks, very informative. I wasn't aware about that one.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

hashtagmarkup 6y ago

This isn't about funding... this is about taking a giant leap into mRNA vaccines, that until now have not been approved for human use. We aren't injecting processed proteins into our bloodstream to trigger and train our immune systems... We are reprogramming our bodies into vaccine factories.

collyw 6y ago
Not sure what you are being downvoted for. Your tone may seem pretty alarmist (but that has been the norm for anything cornoa related). Otherwise it's true.
- enchiridion 6y ago
  Not at all and expert, but I think the idea of reprogramming is wrong, as it implies the vaccine is editing DNA (source code). mRNA vaccines are more analogous to temporarily running a subroutine.
  - polishdude20 6y ago
    Yeah like letting a craftsman use your backyard shed as a woodshop for a few weeks.
    - hashtagmarkup 6y ago
      Except your "backyard shed" is actually an uncountable number of your cells that are "edited" (changed using the reprogramming abilities inherent to mRNA, but god forbid you refer to it as such) into not being "backyard sheds" anymore, but being factories for spike proteins that can't be stopped other than waiting for the fire to burn out. After a few weeks, you don't get your "backyard shed" back, because the craftsman destroyed it.
  - klmr 6y ago
    “Reprogramming” actually has a specific meaning in genetics, and it’s not editing of DNA, it’s the editing of (transient, i.e. epigenetic) DNA modifications. It’s definitely true that this is not what RNA vaccines are doing. But I guess the parent comment was using “reprogramming our bodies into vaccine factories” as a hand-waving description rather than a technically precise term. And that description is then roughly correct: with RNA vaccines, it is correct to say that our bodies are being triggered to produce the actual “vaccine” themselves; namely (at least in one type of RNA vaccine), the body’s cells are translating the injected mRNA to produce antigens, which is what a conventional vaccine contains, and which, in turn, produces an immune response.

monoideism 6y ago

It's not underfunding of drug research and development. It's the FDA restrictions, which have been relaxed for this drug, and they've been expedited through the approval process. So maybe more funding for FDA, contingent upon them speeding up the process.

hailwren 6y ago

Is it possible to spread a virus without an infection? It seems like other than being a surface, any ability to spread would be predicated on also testing positive for the virus -- wouldn't it?

SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> Is it possible to spread a virus without an infection? No, but it's possible to spread a virus without having symptoms, without feeling sick or requiring medical attention. i.e. mild, asymptomatic infection.
bboygravity 6y ago
No, it is not possible to spread virus without being infected. But... It is certainly possible to spread virus without having any symptoms. Like children do with SARS-CoV2. All the time. Source: https://www.cell.com/med/pdf/S2666-6340(20)30020-9.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666634020300209%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/med/pdf/S2666-6340(20)30020-9.pdf?_retu... You can be infected, shed tons of virus and not have any symptoms.

newacct583 6y ago

> Does it prevent spreading (read: keep wearing masks after vaccination) or does it "only" prevent symptoms? There would be no reasonable mechanism for a vaccine that prevents infection but somehow still allows "spreading". Either you're sick or your not, the immune system doesn't "prevent symptoms" (strictly: it's the cause of them). This isn't how things work. As far as "long term side effects"... that's also an extremely rare kind of interaction. Vaccine delivery is extraordinarily safe. I worry that your phrasing is invoking anti-vax paranoia.

bboygravity 6y ago
> There would be no reasonable mechanism for a vaccine that prevents infection but somehow still allows "spreading". Sure. I agree. But there are mechanisms for a vaccine to prevent symptoms and still allow for some infection and spreading. > Either you're sick or your not, the immune system doesn't "prevent symptoms" (strictly: it's the cause of them). You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Being sick = having symptoms = the immune system being (overly) active. The main goal of all the vaccines under development is to prevent the immune system becoming overly active (AKA: fight the symptoms). Not necessarily to prevent any virus from being made in the body and being spread. Although we all hope that it also prevents spreading, it's not a given and it's not proven to do so (yet). It's perfectly possible to be infected and infectious without "being sick" (no symptoms). Children do it all the time with SARS-CoV2. > As far as "long term side effects"... that's also an extremely rare kind of interaction. We're about to vaccinate some 5 Billion people. That means we have to take into consideration "extremely rare" kind of interactions. Especially if you don't want to feed the anti-vax conspiracy theories. > I worry that your phrasing is invoking anti-vax paranoia. I worry that releasing the vaccine too soon could invoke irreparable anti-vax paranoia. I'm all for the vaccine and I would be willing to participate in the trials (if they had space available). But I don't think that it's a good idea to just rush this vaccine and start immunizing the herd en-masse with the risk of serious disease in 1 in 100k people (for example). Now that would really feed the anti-vax paranoia.
- abduhl 6y ago
  What, specifically, are those mechanisms that you think prevent symptoms but allow for infection and spreading? Additionally, even if this mechanism exists, why would we care? The goal is not eradication of the virus at a molecular level, it is stopping the disease at a societal level. Stopping the disease is accomplished when symptoms are prevented. Because symptoms kill people, not the virus. There is an incredible misunderstanding about the difference between a disease (i.e., symptoms caused by a virus) and the virus that causes it. Viruses, bacteria, spores, and other toxic material is everywhere constantly. COVID is the only virus I can think of where we have been actively scared of the mere existence of the virus.

SamBam 6y ago

> Does it prevent spreading (read: keep wearing masks after vaccination) or does it "only" prevent symptoms? I don't believe there is any vaccine in the world that would act like this, since that's not how the immune system works.

mansr 6y ago
Early polio vaccines did.
- SamBam 6y ago
  Source? I skimmed through "History of polio vaccination" [1] and didn't see anything about that. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782271/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782271/
  - mansr 6y ago
    I happened to read it here recently: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/02/how-good-is-the-polio-vaccine/303946/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/02/how-goo... No, that's not a scholarly article.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

> Also interesting to note: so we can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? It's a new type of vaccine that's never been approved before, apparently simpler to develop: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/16/21569345/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-coronavirus-efficacy-announcement https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/16/21569345/moderna-covid-1... > Moderna was the first vaccine to enter clinical trials back in March. Only 63 days after the genetic sequence of the virus was posted online, the company injected the first volunteer with their candidate. They were able to move so quickly because they used a gene-based technology to create their vaccine. Those types of vaccines are relatively simple to create once researchers know the viral gene they’re trying to target. > Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine was built using the same method. The two are made from tiny pieces of mRNA, which gives the human body instructions to produce copies of the coronavirus spike protein. Then, the immune system learns to defend against that protein. Gene-based vaccines are the long-promised future of vaccine development, but they’ve never been approved for use in people by the Food and Drug Administration. The early successes of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are a promising sign for the method. And of course, being in the middle of a pandemic 'helps', in terms of funding, clearing red tape, and also seeing results in testing (with so many people being infected, you can start to see differences between placebo and not-placebo groups much more quickly).

bboygravity 6y ago
Sure, but what about the other 10's to 100's of Corona vaccines that are currently undergoing phase 2 and 3 trials? I'm not convinced by the argument that developing and approving a vaccine this fast is mainly possible because of technological advances that happen to be in sync with the pandemic.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  It's NOT the development that is fast ... it's the green lighting for proceeding through the phases. The FDA accelerating these trials very much "happen to be in sync with the pandemic"
  - 6y ago

bronlund 6y ago

We do know that this vaccine is highly experimental and never been tried on humans before. We know they have tried this on animals and we know that in several studies they are reporting severe long-term side effects.

ben_w 6y ago

> Also interesting to note: so we can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? It doesn't have to take 10 years if we really want to eradicate a disease? My conclusion: we're under-funding research in microbiology. "We" as in: the entire world. Perhaps, perhaps not. This is far outside my field of expertise, but here is an analogy: the fact I released 9 games in 9 months a decade ago does not imply that all games can be coded, foley-ed, and art-ed, in one month by a junior developer with Eclipse, Photoshop Elements, Bryce, and Audacity. I assume there are many diseases where the treatment is the equivalent of an indie platformer while others are the equivalent of a AAA-headliner and yet more are the equivalent of currently fictional games like The Oasis.

pjc50 6y ago

> we're under-funding research in microbiology. "We" as in: the entire world. In general. Yes, definitely? Someone I know in immunology reported that only 5% of grant proposals received funding. There are absolutely huge areas that would benefit from more funding.

kortilla 6y ago
> Someone I know in immunology reported that only 5% of grant proposals received funding. And what percent deserve funding? Given the incremental publish or perish nature of academia most of it likely isn’t (if it’s anything like the other sciences).
- the_french 6y ago
  Part of that pressure comes from the lack of funding though. When you have to fight against 100 other applications for a grant showing you have a recent track record of well-cited papers helps you stand out. If researchers had steadier access to funding there would be less pressure to constantly publish 'breakthroughs' to secure next years funding.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Publish or perish applies to tenure, not funding so much.
- eecc 6y ago
  In my experience, when resources become too scarce and competition too tight, actors start working on the surest bets, or playing the authority card or the most sensational moonshots. IOW, real science gets shown the door and politicking sets up camp.

yskchu 6y ago

Yes, Moderna said it expected the vaccine could be shipped and stored for up to six months at minus 20C It can even remain stable once thawed for 30 days if refrigerated at between 2C and 8C This is much much easier to transport/manage compared to the Pfizer vaccine (store at -75, survive only 5 days after thaw in normal fridge)

blhack 6y ago

A major reason that this happened so fast is due the US government’s operation warp speed program. Moderna worked with NIAID on this vaccine closely, and the us gov funded it without regard for if it actually worked or not. So it’s funding...but it seems extremely unlikely that we would fund most other diseases this way. The way warp speed works is that the federal government funds the vaccine even if it doesn’t work. This allows the drug maker to work faster because they don’t have to worry about losing billions of dollars on a vaccine that does nothing. The federal government eats the risk. It’s was a really good strategy for the vaccine development and I think the federal team deserves a lot of credit for where we are with the vaccines.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Getting downvoted for giving Trump credit even where it’s due. Yikes.
- blhack 6y ago
  The thing is: I’m not even giving trump credit here. There are hundred or maybe even thousands of people working in the federal government on warp speed.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    But you should know better than to have anything other than total condemnation for anything even adjacent to the Trump administration! If people react this strongly to something as non-controversial and objectively true, it’s no wonder that people might be suspicious about some vote tally accuracy in certain critical districts.
- zzzeek 6y ago
  "Fauci also told CNN that Trump has not attended a meeting of the White House coronavirus taskforce in months. CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment." get real. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/15/dr-fauci-trump-should-work-with-biden-transition-team-on-coronavirus.html?__source=google%7Ceditorspicks%7C&par=google https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/15/dr-fauci-trump-should-work-w...

Jon_Lowtek 6y ago

> so we [the world] can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? Approving vaccines could be done in days, if we are willing to ignore the obvious problem of that approval being completely worthless. Situations like the current one with a heavily incentivized race to the mass market are favoring crooks willing to fudge tests. In the last two decades multiple bad actors (GKV, Ranbaxy, Cetero) had been found in the economy of clinical trials. Due diligence takes time.

rocqua 6y ago

> Also interesting to note: so we can develop and approve vaccines for new diseases within months? It doesn't have to take 10 years if we really want to eradicate a disease badly enough? My conclusion: we're under-funding research in microbiology. "We" as in: the entire world. In general. Given the harm caused by this vaccine, we consider a higher cost of development to be acceptable. That includes monetary cost, the cost of redirecting many other research resources to this research, and the potential cost of rushing development with less testing than normal. This is all sane to do, because corona also has a really high cost. Other diseases have a much lower cost, and hence investing less in them makes sense. Sure, the world could probably focus all its attention on fixing a disease, and make meaningful process. But what would the world have to give up in order to do that? Would that trade-off be worth it. With Corona, it becomes worth it a lot sooner than with something else.

hackerfromthefu 6y ago
A lot of the medical industry is about creating ongoing revenue streams rather than curing the causes of illness.