6 ms·

For me, this really calls into question the efficacy numbers published for the Gamaleya vaccine. e.g.: The Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and

For me, this really calls into question the efficacy numbers published for the Gamaleya vaccine. e.g.: The Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) have reported that the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine showed a 97.6% efficacy. [0] [0]: https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/russia-sputnik-v-efficacy/ https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/russia-sputni...

vbezhenar 5y ago
Lancet seems to be a respected journal and it confirms those numbers.
- dikei 5y ago
  Most scientific journals only do peer-review by sending articles to other scientists. These scientists, most of the time, only check for logical errors, and are not able to replicate the experiments.
- major505 5y ago
  it's important to make clear that what make the vacine being reject was not because of this number. The problem is that they remove the dna part of the virus that allow it to replicate once injected. But in all samples that they tested, in multiple batchs, they found replicant Adenovirus, that could make people who received the vacine sick. That said, this is not a total rejection of the vacine. This is a rejection of the batches that where going to be imported. There are plan to produce this vacine in Brazil, and this batches could be approved in the future, if they did not find the same problems.
- tzumby 5y ago
  Did you forget the /s here ? Lancet is not a respected journal and has a history of controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Andrew_Wakefield_and_the_MMR_vaccine_(1998) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Andrew_Wakefield_an...
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > Lancet is not a respected journal Of all the nonsense I've read over the years on HN this pretty much takes the cake. > has a history of controversies No, over the many decades (190+ years) it has been in publication there have been a (low) number of problematic papers that passed its review, and for each and every one of those there is a very well documented history and in most cases a retraction. Like every other classifier journals have 'false negatives' and 'false positives', papers that should have passed their review but did not and papers that should not have passed but did. It's inevitable.
    - kspacewalk2 5y ago
      It's a respected journal, but lately it's been publishing research that is of questionable quality for its "top-tier" reputation.
      - seppin 5y ago
        It was also the source of the nonsense surrounding hydroxychloroquine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Study_on_hydroxychloroquine_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Study_on_hydroxychl...
    - mattkrause 5y ago
      On top of that, peer review is more advisory than adversarial: it’s meant to catch honest mistakes and point out possible interpretations that the authors might have missed. Catching out-and-out fraud, a la Wakefield, is way beyond the reviewers’ remit.
      - coliveira 5y ago
        Every journal in the world is like this. Why you're raising questions about Lancet when all scientific journals operate the same way? There is no such thing as American science or Russian science, it is all the same.
- ArgyleSound 5y ago
  The vaccine described in the paper published in The Lancet was explicitly described as using an replication deficient Ad5 vector, while the vaccine received by Brazil seems to have been replication competent. Considering Slovakia also said that Russia did not deliver a vaccine matching the characteristics of the one in The Lancet, I think those data are basically irrelevant now.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    The vaccines delivered to Brazil also have a replication deficient Ad5 vector, Anvisa says that among the vast majority of replication deficient vectors some replication-able viruses were present. There is pretty much no chance at all that this affects efficacy.
    - sanxiyn 5y ago
      > Anvisa says that among the vast majority of replication deficient vectors some replication-able viruses were present. Do you have the source for this claim? Linked Anvisa slides page 6 says "todos os lotes" (all lots) had replicating virus. I agree this is about quality control and it is extremely unlikely to affect vaccine efficacy. (If anything, it would improve vaccine efficacy.)
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        I will try to find the source again, however I would read todos os lotes as saying that there are detectable replicant viruses. Replicant viruses do not carry the spike protein, they don't contribute to antigen protection.
        bonzini 5y ago
        > Replicant viruses do not carry the spike protein, they don't contribute to antigen protection. Are you sure? Do you mean that all of them must have had recombination that added the E1 gene and dropped the spike protein?
- DivestTrump 5y ago
  Lancet is not "respected" after their autism fraud scandal. Re-publishing Russian state-sponsored research is not "confirming those numbers" it's just low editorial standards.
- temporalparts 5y ago
  The Lancet didn't perform those tests, they only published the numbers provided by researchers overseeing the trials. The first author of the source paper is Denis Logunov [0] who works at the Gamaleya Research Institute [1]. [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00234-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... [1] https://g.co/kgs/u6wvJ8 https://g.co/kgs/u6wvJ8
  - coliveira 5y ago
    Just like they do for every other vaccine. Every result was provided by researchers overseeing the trials for their own vaccines, nothing different here.
  - isitdopamine 5y ago
    Scientific journals do not perform medical tests.
- gus_massa 5y ago
  Just a reminder that the journals don't reproduce the research before publishing the article. They only check that somewhat intelligible, somewhat new, somewhat interesting. The more serious the journal, the more strict the checks. So the numbers are not confirmed by the Lancet, they are just published in the Lancet. It's much better than reading numbers that are published in a blog, but it's not a 100% proof that they are correct.
coliveira 5y ago
You cannot trust the Brazilian government to make this judgement. It is a policy of that government to delay the approval of vaccines as much as possible, as if there was no actual pandemic going on. Other governments around the world have analyzed the vaccine, including Argentina and Mexico, and they're using it without any problems.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  article clearly states that other governments have raised similar concerns. Its not just brazil in fact, article states brazil wasn't even the first
- is_true 5y ago
  Argentinian government basically told it's own version of anvisa to approve the vaccine. That's it.
  - coliveira 5y ago
    That's nonsense, most governments around the world are approving vaccines on an urgent basis. This is true for every vaccine. This doesn't mean that the government forcing any vaccine to be accepted.
    - is_true 5y ago
      Here it did. It didn't allow the agency in charge of that approve it.

vbezhenar 5y ago

Lancet seems to be a respected journal and it confirms those numbers.

dikei 5y ago
Most scientific journals only do peer-review by sending articles to other scientists. These scientists, most of the time, only check for logical errors, and are not able to replicate the experiments.
major505 5y ago
it's important to make clear that what make the vacine being reject was not because of this number. The problem is that they remove the dna part of the virus that allow it to replicate once injected. But in all samples that they tested, in multiple batchs, they found replicant Adenovirus, that could make people who received the vacine sick. That said, this is not a total rejection of the vacine. This is a rejection of the batches that where going to be imported. There are plan to produce this vacine in Brazil, and this batches could be approved in the future, if they did not find the same problems.
tzumby 5y ago
Did you forget the /s here ? Lancet is not a respected journal and has a history of controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Andrew_Wakefield_and_the_MMR_vaccine_(1998) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Andrew_Wakefield_an...
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > Lancet is not a respected journal Of all the nonsense I've read over the years on HN this pretty much takes the cake. > has a history of controversies No, over the many decades (190+ years) it has been in publication there have been a (low) number of problematic papers that passed its review, and for each and every one of those there is a very well documented history and in most cases a retraction. Like every other classifier journals have 'false negatives' and 'false positives', papers that should have passed their review but did not and papers that should not have passed but did. It's inevitable.
  - kspacewalk2 5y ago
    It's a respected journal, but lately it's been publishing research that is of questionable quality for its "top-tier" reputation.
    - seppin 5y ago
      It was also the source of the nonsense surrounding hydroxychloroquine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Study_on_hydroxychloroquine_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Study_on_hydroxychl...
  - mattkrause 5y ago
    On top of that, peer review is more advisory than adversarial: it’s meant to catch honest mistakes and point out possible interpretations that the authors might have missed. Catching out-and-out fraud, a la Wakefield, is way beyond the reviewers’ remit.
    - coliveira 5y ago
      Every journal in the world is like this. Why you're raising questions about Lancet when all scientific journals operate the same way? There is no such thing as American science or Russian science, it is all the same.
ArgyleSound 5y ago
The vaccine described in the paper published in The Lancet was explicitly described as using an replication deficient Ad5 vector, while the vaccine received by Brazil seems to have been replication competent. Considering Slovakia also said that Russia did not deliver a vaccine matching the characteristics of the one in The Lancet, I think those data are basically irrelevant now.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The vaccines delivered to Brazil also have a replication deficient Ad5 vector, Anvisa says that among the vast majority of replication deficient vectors some replication-able viruses were present. There is pretty much no chance at all that this affects efficacy.
  - sanxiyn 5y ago
    > Anvisa says that among the vast majority of replication deficient vectors some replication-able viruses were present. Do you have the source for this claim? Linked Anvisa slides page 6 says "todos os lotes" (all lots) had replicating virus. I agree this is about quality control and it is extremely unlikely to affect vaccine efficacy. (If anything, it would improve vaccine efficacy.)
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      I will try to find the source again, however I would read todos os lotes as saying that there are detectable replicant viruses. Replicant viruses do not carry the spike protein, they don't contribute to antigen protection.
      - bonzini 5y ago
        > Replicant viruses do not carry the spike protein, they don't contribute to antigen protection. Are you sure? Do you mean that all of them must have had recombination that added the E1 gene and dropped the spike protein?
DivestTrump 5y ago
Lancet is not "respected" after their autism fraud scandal. Re-publishing Russian state-sponsored research is not "confirming those numbers" it's just low editorial standards.
temporalparts 5y ago
The Lancet didn't perform those tests, they only published the numbers provided by researchers overseeing the trials. The first author of the source paper is Denis Logunov [0] who works at the Gamaleya Research Institute [1]. [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00234-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... [1] https://g.co/kgs/u6wvJ8 https://g.co/kgs/u6wvJ8
- coliveira 5y ago
  Just like they do for every other vaccine. Every result was provided by researchers overseeing the trials for their own vaccines, nothing different here.
- isitdopamine 5y ago
  Scientific journals do not perform medical tests.
gus_massa 5y ago
Just a reminder that the journals don't reproduce the research before publishing the article. They only check that somewhat intelligible, somewhat new, somewhat interesting. The more serious the journal, the more strict the checks. So the numbers are not confirmed by the Lancet, they are just published in the Lancet. It's much better than reading numbers that are published in a blog, but it's not a 100% proof that they are correct.

coliveira 5y ago

You cannot trust the Brazilian government to make this judgement. It is a policy of that government to delay the approval of vaccines as much as possible, as if there was no actual pandemic going on. Other governments around the world have analyzed the vaccine, including Argentina and Mexico, and they're using it without any problems.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
article clearly states that other governments have raised similar concerns. Its not just brazil in fact, article states brazil wasn't even the first
is_true 5y ago
Argentinian government basically told it's own version of anvisa to approve the vaccine. That's it.
- coliveira 5y ago
  That's nonsense, most governments around the world are approving vaccines on an urgent basis. This is true for every vaccine. This doesn't mean that the government forcing any vaccine to be accepted.
  - is_true 5y ago
    Here it did. It didn't allow the agency in charge of that approve it.