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It seems they could pre-make vaccines for all 131 extant types and then mix the flu shots based on the current season. Though, likely that wouldn’t be economica

It seems they could pre-make vaccines for all 131 extant types and then mix the flu shots based on the current season. Though, likely that wouldn’t be economical. It does raise the question of why they couldn’t just put a bit of all 131 subtypes in the vaccine. Or if that’d overload the immune system, say, the X subtypes most likely to makeup say 99% of probable flu season strains.

lazide 6y ago
They could - but up until recently no one cared enough, both for R&D spend and to get or mandate enough shots for it to work at it’s stated goals. We’ve had people even recently refusing to give their kids polio, tetanus, or measles vaccines - and even 5 minutes of honest research or questions to a doctor will make quite clear how bad an idea THAT is. Getting 100+ flu vaccines, all which would have to go through a pipeline taking nearly a decade, when ‘nothing bad has happened’ on that topic for a hundred years? Ain’t nobody going to pay for that. We’ll see how the calculus is different soon. I for one would rather my tax dollars go towards figuring something like never having the flu again than blowing up some random middle eastern country a couple more times.
- jbjbjbjb 6y ago
  There’s got to be a large market for that given the entire elderly population is offered a flu shot every year. Doing that as a one off would be a huge cost saving.
  - lazide 6y ago
    Not sure it would pay for itself even in 100 years if you use that metric. $20 (likely current retail cost of a flu shot) x the 46 million older adults in the US is a hair less than a billion a year. Making 131 or so effective flu vaccines and getting them through the process with the prior known and effective process? (including all the failed attempts) Hopefully we’d get some economies of scale, estimates [https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2018/02/how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-a-new-vaccine/ https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2018/02/how-much-does-it-c...] I found had it between 500m to 2.5billion and a decade each. So 65billion to 327billion. So between 65 to 327 years for positive ROI if that was your metric. If you’re talking public good, it would be immeasurable for us and the world though, no question, and on the high end that’s less than a third [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47391821.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-473918...] of what we’ve spent in Afghanistan alone.
    - jbjbjbjb 6y ago
      I believe they’d make one shot that would handle 131 flus.
      - lazide 6y ago
        That would be ideal - we also have no evidence that is possible at all, or desirable with immune system behavior/interactions. We'd need try to find out, which I personally think would be way better for everyone involved than many other things we spend money on. So take that as my vote for trying?

lazide 6y ago

They could - but up until recently no one cared enough, both for R&D spend and to get or mandate enough shots for it to work at it’s stated goals. We’ve had people even recently refusing to give their kids polio, tetanus, or measles vaccines - and even 5 minutes of honest research or questions to a doctor will make quite clear how bad an idea THAT is. Getting 100+ flu vaccines, all which would have to go through a pipeline taking nearly a decade, when ‘nothing bad has happened’ on that topic for a hundred years? Ain’t nobody going to pay for that. We’ll see how the calculus is different soon. I for one would rather my tax dollars go towards figuring something like never having the flu again than blowing up some random middle eastern country a couple more times.

jbjbjbjb 6y ago
There’s got to be a large market for that given the entire elderly population is offered a flu shot every year. Doing that as a one off would be a huge cost saving.
- lazide 6y ago
  Not sure it would pay for itself even in 100 years if you use that metric. $20 (likely current retail cost of a flu shot) x the 46 million older adults in the US is a hair less than a billion a year. Making 131 or so effective flu vaccines and getting them through the process with the prior known and effective process? (including all the failed attempts) Hopefully we’d get some economies of scale, estimates [https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2018/02/how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-a-new-vaccine/ https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2018/02/how-much-does-it-c...] I found had it between 500m to 2.5billion and a decade each. So 65billion to 327billion. So between 65 to 327 years for positive ROI if that was your metric. If you’re talking public good, it would be immeasurable for us and the world though, no question, and on the high end that’s less than a third [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47391821.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-473918...] of what we’ve spent in Afghanistan alone.
  - jbjbjbjb 6y ago
    I believe they’d make one shot that would handle 131 flus.
    - lazide 6y ago
      That would be ideal - we also have no evidence that is possible at all, or desirable with immune system behavior/interactions. We'd need try to find out, which I personally think would be way better for everyone involved than many other things we spend money on. So take that as my vote for trying?