9 ms·

Monoclonal antibodies are already successfully being used. This is just a press release from another company wanting in on the action. Honestly surprising why

by vimy 5y ago

Monoclonal antibodies are already successfully being used. This is just a press release from another company wanting in on the action. Honestly surprising why so few people know about the antibody therapy we already have, reduces death by 80 to 90 %. Also unclear why we still need vaccine mandates when we have a cure. https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/monoclonal-antibody-therapy/mab-locator/ https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/monoclonal-antibody-therapy... https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-monoclonal-abbott/2021/08/19/a39a0b5e-0029-11ec-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-monoclonal-abbot...

JonathanFly 5y ago
>Honestly surprising why so few people know about the antibody therapy we already have, reduces death by 80 to 90 %. Also unclear why we still need vaccine mandates when we have a cure. Do promptly delivered monoclonals blunt your body's natural immune response and prevent natural immunity, as your body doesn't need to make its own antibodies? If so, all the more reason to get vaccinated as soon as the engineered antibodies fade. Or before treatment, I don't see why having both wouldn't be extra effective?
tasogare 5y ago
> Also unclear why we still need vaccine mandates when we have a cure. Corruption. It always have been the alpha and omega of this whole vaccine story, minus the part where governments went on-board as a way to restrict citizens right.
creatonez 5y ago
> This is just a press release from another company wanting in on the action. Was the URL changed? This is a press release from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and Lausanne University Hospital, both public institutions.
- vimy 5y ago
  No, I was sleep deprived and made a mistake. :p
- skrbjc 5y ago
  It says in the article they are spinning off a startup company based on the research. Also that this is funded by a public-private partnership that "reduces bottlenecks"
pradn 5y ago
We still seem to have >1500 deaths/day in the US. Is treatment effective but not available? Or is it just not effective?
- rkk3 5y ago
  worth remembering that we have > 8000 deaths a day under normal circumstances and with covid does not necessarily mean because of covid.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    We're still getting ~15,000 excess deaths every week, compared to recent similar years and given our population size. [1] I'd like to see how to explain all 15,000 deaths per week as being simply "with Covid" instead of caused by Covid. Is it all still lockdown-related stress causing the deaths? And all of them happened to die "with Covid?" 1. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...
    - piva00 5y ago
      This line of reasoning from the parent comment is tedious, I don't know where it originates from but I had to debunk the same statement made by Brazilians and used the same metric as you: excess deaths are still high as a kite. It's exhausting to be facing this misinformation spread in different languages and cultures. Even here in Sweden I have had to put up with people using flawed statistics to make a point without considering the nuances of the metrics they choose to parade around. I'm tired.
    - ryanbrunner 5y ago
      The link you posted is just raw excess deaths. Whether they had COVID or not is unknown, so the "with COVID" vs" "from COVID" argument is irrelevant here. While I agree with you that a significant part of those deaths are in fact from COVID, there's other explanations other than "lockdown stress" that could cause increased excess deaths - people avoiding medical treatment due to fear of catching COVID in healthcare settings, hospitals being overloaded in the first place and surgeries being delayed, or poorer health outcomes due to financial impact, which in extreme cases could cause food insecurity or homelessness.
kalleboo 5y ago
Because a course of monoclonal antibody treatment costs $5000, whereas a vaccine could be had for dollars
- vimy 5y ago
  The price is not relevant. The idea behind vaccine mandates is that it’s the only way to protect people so therefore it’s ethical to force people to take the vaccine. But this treatment has been available for almost a year… No one should be forced to take something if there are alternatives. Instead we should have ramped up production of these game changing drugs. Why didn’t we?
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
    ...because MCA is a treatment, while the vaccine is a prophylactic. Every person who refuses the vaccine and winds up needing ICU treatment means resources unavailable for breakout cases and non-covid emergency conditions. It's absolutely ethical to compel vaccination in order to safeguard the health and safety of the overwhelming majority of Americans who are being individually and socially responsible by getting vaccinated; and the healthcare system and workers, which are under tremendous strain. Also, prior to COVID, monoclonal antibodies were being tested in single digit numbers of patients with highly aggressive cancers at a cost of $500K per treatment. The cost has come down 100x, so it's inaccurate to claim production hasn't ramped up. It has, it's just still way more cost effective to get a vaccine.
    - brigandish 5y ago
      > It's absolutely ethical to compel vaccination It's never ethical to compel the innocent to do anything. A shifting of the incentives would be far more ethical, but difficult politically - perhaps make people who are unvaccinated pay a greater percentage of their treatment, or need to take special insurance. I'd advocate that kind of thing for most things relating to personal/lifestyle choice, obesity being a good example, giving better premiums to non-smokers, vegetarians etc but when the numbers of (possible) patients becomes big then it's unlikely to be taken up either by an electorate nor by a politician. That's ignoring how many health systems seem fundamentally broken for other reasons (e.g. US and UK).
sriram_malhar 5y ago
Two reasons. Vaccines are waaaay cheaper, and second, covid patients are tying up limited medical resources (ICU beds, ventilators etc).
- manwe150 5y ago
  Also that vimy’s question seems to imply that vaccination blocks getting treated in the hospital with antibody therapy later. That seems obviously false, no? I assume that the effects are likely multiplicative, and not subtractive as vimy seems to be suggesting.
  - manwe150 5y ago
    Also perhaps too because the MAB treatment may reduce your ‘natural immunity’ benefit that vaccination-hesitant people seem to be so hyped about getting from being very ill. Versus giving the vaccines that actually do give ‘natural immunity’ to you.
  - vimy 5y ago
    That’s not what I implied. And also not true, vaccinated people can also get treated if they have a breakthrough infection.
    - manwe150 5y ago
      What’s unclear then? We don’t have a magic 100% cure, we have a pretty good drug that works much better in combination with vaccination.
- Proven 5y ago
  Nonsense. Many patients don't mind to pay for their treatment and there's no shortage of beds. I also don't believe that after treatment patients need to use ICU.
ChrisRR 5y ago
I would guess because covd patients are already taking up hospital resources (beds, vents, care staff) even with restrictions and vaccines. If the solution was cure rather than prevention, then the hospitals would become overwhelmed while they provide care until the antibody therapy kicks in Also, it causes the spread to go exponential as there's no restriction to the spread, so the hospital admissions go exponential too Plus, there's the whole US treatment costs thing too
- vimy 5y ago
  The vaccination centers can double as infusion centers. The therapy kicks in immediately, you’re back to normal the next day. It’s really a wonderdrug and weird we haven’t heard more about it.
  - ChrisRR 5y ago
    Having a building is the least of the concerns, there's tons of buildings around. You need beds, medical staff, and vents/cpap. And if you don't prevent the spread then your infection rate is exponential and collapse the healthcare system. Ignoring vaccines in favour of treating the critically ill is absolutely the wrong way to go about it
intpx 5y ago
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure Also, since vaccines reduce death to almost 0, and a 'cure' on top of that reduces death by 80-90% (as you claim), if everyone is vaccinated that can be, and there is a treatment, there is no more disease, but thousands are still dying every day. So we need the vaccine mandates. Additionally, death is only one of many of the devastating outcomes of Covid. In many cases there are profound and longterm effects. So we need the goddamn vaccine mandates.

by vimy 5y ago

JonathanFly 5y ago

>Honestly surprising why so few people know about the antibody therapy we already have, reduces death by 80 to 90 %. Also unclear why we still need vaccine mandates when we have a cure. Do promptly delivered monoclonals blunt your body's natural immune response and prevent natural immunity, as your body doesn't need to make its own antibodies? If so, all the more reason to get vaccinated as soon as the engineered antibodies fade. Or before treatment, I don't see why having both wouldn't be extra effective?

tasogare 5y ago

> Also unclear why we still need vaccine mandates when we have a cure. Corruption. It always have been the alpha and omega of this whole vaccine story, minus the part where governments went on-board as a way to restrict citizens right.

creatonez 5y ago

> This is just a press release from another company wanting in on the action. Was the URL changed? This is a press release from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and Lausanne University Hospital, both public institutions.

vimy 5y ago
No, I was sleep deprived and made a mistake. :p
skrbjc 5y ago
It says in the article they are spinning off a startup company based on the research. Also that this is funded by a public-private partnership that "reduces bottlenecks"

pradn 5y ago

We still seem to have >1500 deaths/day in the US. Is treatment effective but not available? Or is it just not effective?

rkk3 5y ago
worth remembering that we have > 8000 deaths a day under normal circumstances and with covid does not necessarily mean because of covid.
- SamBam 5y ago
  We're still getting ~15,000 excess deaths every week, compared to recent similar years and given our population size. [1] I'd like to see how to explain all 15,000 deaths per week as being simply "with Covid" instead of caused by Covid. Is it all still lockdown-related stress causing the deaths? And all of them happened to die "with Covid?" 1. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...
  - piva00 5y ago
    This line of reasoning from the parent comment is tedious, I don't know where it originates from but I had to debunk the same statement made by Brazilians and used the same metric as you: excess deaths are still high as a kite. It's exhausting to be facing this misinformation spread in different languages and cultures. Even here in Sweden I have had to put up with people using flawed statistics to make a point without considering the nuances of the metrics they choose to parade around. I'm tired.
  - ryanbrunner 5y ago
    The link you posted is just raw excess deaths. Whether they had COVID or not is unknown, so the "with COVID" vs" "from COVID" argument is irrelevant here. While I agree with you that a significant part of those deaths are in fact from COVID, there's other explanations other than "lockdown stress" that could cause increased excess deaths - people avoiding medical treatment due to fear of catching COVID in healthcare settings, hospitals being overloaded in the first place and surgeries being delayed, or poorer health outcomes due to financial impact, which in extreme cases could cause food insecurity or homelessness.

kalleboo 5y ago

Because a course of monoclonal antibody treatment costs $5000, whereas a vaccine could be had for dollars

vimy 5y ago
The price is not relevant. The idea behind vaccine mandates is that it’s the only way to protect people so therefore it’s ethical to force people to take the vaccine. But this treatment has been available for almost a year… No one should be forced to take something if there are alternatives. Instead we should have ramped up production of these game changing drugs. Why didn’t we?
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  ...because MCA is a treatment, while the vaccine is a prophylactic. Every person who refuses the vaccine and winds up needing ICU treatment means resources unavailable for breakout cases and non-covid emergency conditions. It's absolutely ethical to compel vaccination in order to safeguard the health and safety of the overwhelming majority of Americans who are being individually and socially responsible by getting vaccinated; and the healthcare system and workers, which are under tremendous strain. Also, prior to COVID, monoclonal antibodies were being tested in single digit numbers of patients with highly aggressive cancers at a cost of $500K per treatment. The cost has come down 100x, so it's inaccurate to claim production hasn't ramped up. It has, it's just still way more cost effective to get a vaccine.
  - brigandish 5y ago
    > It's absolutely ethical to compel vaccination It's never ethical to compel the innocent to do anything. A shifting of the incentives would be far more ethical, but difficult politically - perhaps make people who are unvaccinated pay a greater percentage of their treatment, or need to take special insurance. I'd advocate that kind of thing for most things relating to personal/lifestyle choice, obesity being a good example, giving better premiums to non-smokers, vegetarians etc but when the numbers of (possible) patients becomes big then it's unlikely to be taken up either by an electorate nor by a politician. That's ignoring how many health systems seem fundamentally broken for other reasons (e.g. US and UK).

sriram_malhar 5y ago

Two reasons. Vaccines are waaaay cheaper, and second, covid patients are tying up limited medical resources (ICU beds, ventilators etc).

manwe150 5y ago
Also that vimy’s question seems to imply that vaccination blocks getting treated in the hospital with antibody therapy later. That seems obviously false, no? I assume that the effects are likely multiplicative, and not subtractive as vimy seems to be suggesting.
- manwe150 5y ago
  Also perhaps too because the MAB treatment may reduce your ‘natural immunity’ benefit that vaccination-hesitant people seem to be so hyped about getting from being very ill. Versus giving the vaccines that actually do give ‘natural immunity’ to you.
- vimy 5y ago
  That’s not what I implied. And also not true, vaccinated people can also get treated if they have a breakthrough infection.
  - manwe150 5y ago
    What’s unclear then? We don’t have a magic 100% cure, we have a pretty good drug that works much better in combination with vaccination.
Proven 5y ago
Nonsense. Many patients don't mind to pay for their treatment and there's no shortage of beds. I also don't believe that after treatment patients need to use ICU.

ChrisRR 5y ago

I would guess because covd patients are already taking up hospital resources (beds, vents, care staff) even with restrictions and vaccines. If the solution was cure rather than prevention, then the hospitals would become overwhelmed while they provide care until the antibody therapy kicks in Also, it causes the spread to go exponential as there's no restriction to the spread, so the hospital admissions go exponential too Plus, there's the whole US treatment costs thing too

vimy 5y ago
The vaccination centers can double as infusion centers. The therapy kicks in immediately, you’re back to normal the next day. It’s really a wonderdrug and weird we haven’t heard more about it.
- ChrisRR 5y ago
  Having a building is the least of the concerns, there's tons of buildings around. You need beds, medical staff, and vents/cpap. And if you don't prevent the spread then your infection rate is exponential and collapse the healthcare system. Ignoring vaccines in favour of treating the critically ill is absolutely the wrong way to go about it

intpx 5y ago

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure Also, since vaccines reduce death to almost 0, and a 'cure' on top of that reduces death by 80-90% (as you claim), if everyone is vaccinated that can be, and there is a treatment, there is no more disease, but thousands are still dying every day. So we need the vaccine mandates. Additionally, death is only one of many of the devastating outcomes of Covid. In many cases there are profound and longterm effects. So we need the goddamn vaccine mandates.