4 ms·

I am somewhat scared of this mRNA/fancy biotech stuff. We are really playing with fire and I dread to think what happens if we screw up. I don't think the way w

I am somewhat scared of this mRNA/fancy biotech stuff. We are really playing with fire and I dread to think what happens if we screw up. I don't think the way we test this stuff is sufficient. We need some kind of simulated unit testing for drugs.

landryraccoon 5y ago
What do you fear will happen exactly?
- c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  Like another comment said, cancer, but that's probably one of the better ones on the list of possibilities. Neurogeneration, mutation of gametes, accidental sterilisation. Let me be very clear - I'm NOT promoting an anti-science viewpoint here or saying that progress is a bad thing. I'm simply stating that we're in possession of powerful new tools and if we aren't careful, we're going to end up with more Thalidomide babies or worse. Applying this new technology on people and then measuring the outcome is not an appropriate or ethical strategy. It's not appropriate because the consequences could be very hard to detect or not present themselves for decades. And it's not ethical because it's harder to predict what could go wrong.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    What mechanisms can lead to long term mutations?
  - albertgoeswoof 5y ago
    This is an “anti-science” viewpoint though- you’re providing a bunch of hypotheses but no evidence for them. And then you’re throwing in unrelated historical situations “Thalidomide babies” to evoke the “think of the children” argument, provoking moral outrage. Finally you throw up a straw man to imply that science doesn’t generally use ethical practices, of which you provide no evidence for.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - vixen99 5y ago
      You mean 'I've personally seen no evidence for them'. Pharmaceutical companies are science companies big time. They do science and the stack of proven unethical practices connected with them is extensive as a spot of searching reveals. No implication necessary, We know they often don't conduct themselves in a proper manner and often in a criminal manner. "Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing" - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-b... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-merck-sharp-dohme-sentenced-connection-unlawful-promotion-vioxx https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-mer... To which we can add Eli Lilly, Amgen, Astrazenica, Actelion, Purdue Pharma all of whom have been fined upwards of $200 million. And these are only the big fish. Of course most scientific activity takes place such that ethical considerations don't arise. When they do however, it would seem that making a default judgment of their ethical probity is definitely problematic.
    - incrudible 5y ago
      When you say "no evidence", what sort of evidence do you expect? The reason we generally run trials for many years is to gather evidence. There was "no evidence" for the vaccines causing Myocarditis when they were rolled out. Now there's strong evidence and the concerns are growing. This trial reported Myocarditis rates at 1:1000 in a group with median age 33: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v... This is three times higher than what the FDA estimated for the highest risk group (males aged 16-17), based on VAERS data: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-08-30/03-COVID-Su-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... As for neurodegeneration, there is a concern that Codon-optimization[2] used for mRNA vaccines[3] can trigger it. It's simply not possible to gather evidence of that in the current approval timeframe, we just assume that the risk outweighs the benefit, come hell and high water. That may be a reasonable assumption for at-risk groups, but not for everyone. [2] https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-the-question https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-th... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  It's a valid concern. All of the RNA/DBA/mRNA molecules are mutable between each other. What informed people are wondering (waiting for data) about is how corona will impact women's reproductive systems, especially eggs.
dghughes 5y ago
>I dread to think what happens if we screw up Cancer. It's always cancer.
techsin101 5y ago
I read on reddit in a long drawn out debate between to researchers was a concern that MRNa could triggering auto-immunity in case of covid treatment. As errors happen in copying/duplication. And covid treatments are training immune system to attack virus but error could easily train to target to some receptors on human cells.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

landryraccoon 5y ago

What do you fear will happen exactly?

c7DJTLrn 5y ago
Like another comment said, cancer, but that's probably one of the better ones on the list of possibilities. Neurogeneration, mutation of gametes, accidental sterilisation. Let me be very clear - I'm NOT promoting an anti-science viewpoint here or saying that progress is a bad thing. I'm simply stating that we're in possession of powerful new tools and if we aren't careful, we're going to end up with more Thalidomide babies or worse. Applying this new technology on people and then measuring the outcome is not an appropriate or ethical strategy. It's not appropriate because the consequences could be very hard to detect or not present themselves for decades. And it's not ethical because it's harder to predict what could go wrong.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  What mechanisms can lead to long term mutations?
- albertgoeswoof 5y ago
  This is an “anti-science” viewpoint though- you’re providing a bunch of hypotheses but no evidence for them. And then you’re throwing in unrelated historical situations “Thalidomide babies” to evoke the “think of the children” argument, provoking moral outrage. Finally you throw up a straw man to imply that science doesn’t generally use ethical practices, of which you provide no evidence for.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - vixen99 5y ago
    You mean 'I've personally seen no evidence for them'. Pharmaceutical companies are science companies big time. They do science and the stack of proven unethical practices connected with them is extensive as a spot of searching reveals. No implication necessary, We know they often don't conduct themselves in a proper manner and often in a criminal manner. "Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing" - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-b... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-merck-sharp-dohme-sentenced-connection-unlawful-promotion-vioxx https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-mer... To which we can add Eli Lilly, Amgen, Astrazenica, Actelion, Purdue Pharma all of whom have been fined upwards of $200 million. And these are only the big fish. Of course most scientific activity takes place such that ethical considerations don't arise. When they do however, it would seem that making a default judgment of their ethical probity is definitely problematic.
  - incrudible 5y ago
    When you say "no evidence", what sort of evidence do you expect? The reason we generally run trials for many years is to gather evidence. There was "no evidence" for the vaccines causing Myocarditis when they were rolled out. Now there's strong evidence and the concerns are growing. This trial reported Myocarditis rates at 1:1000 in a group with median age 33: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v... This is three times higher than what the FDA estimated for the highest risk group (males aged 16-17), based on VAERS data: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-08-30/03-COVID-Su-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... As for neurodegeneration, there is a concern that Codon-optimization[2] used for mRNA vaccines[3] can trigger it. It's simply not possible to gather evidence of that in the current approval timeframe, we just assume that the risk outweighs the benefit, come hell and high water. That may be a reasonable assumption for at-risk groups, but not for everyone. [2] https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-the-question https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-th... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/
redis_mlc 5y ago
It's a valid concern. All of the RNA/DBA/mRNA molecules are mutable between each other. What informed people are wondering (waiting for data) about is how corona will impact women's reproductive systems, especially eggs.

dghughes 5y ago

>I dread to think what happens if we screw up Cancer. It's always cancer.

techsin101 5y ago

I read on reddit in a long drawn out debate between to researchers was a concern that MRNa could triggering auto-immunity in case of covid treatment. As errors happen in copying/duplication. And covid treatments are training immune system to attack virus but error could easily train to target to some receptors on human cells.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]