8 ms·

Prions are "just" proteins that should get broken down by the body. But they don't, and they cause ‎Creutzfeldt-Jakob in over 10 years after ingesting.

cglace 5y ago
Are you suggesting that every new molecule should be treated as if it were a prion?
- yosito 5y ago
  I'm not an expert, but I think if a molecule is isolated, it is possible to determine whether or not it is a prion. IIRC, prions are basically misfolded protiens that cause other protiens to misfold, like a corrupted file that passes the corruption on to every copy or derived file until the system crashes. But you can examine them before systemic problems show up. And I believe a prion has to be a protien-like molecule. Again, not an expert.
- osobo 5y ago
  Actually: Yes.
- darthvoldemort 5y ago
  I'm suggesting that sometimes a very small amount of a substance can cause catastrophic effects a decade later. That's why we do testing before we release drugs. And Pfizer isn't the hero here, they never have been. https://corporatewatch.org/pfizer-six-scandals-to-remember/ https://corporatewatch.org/pfizer-six-scandals-to-remember/ This list doesn't even include Celebrex. 1986: Pfizer had to withdraw an artificial heart valve from the market after defects led to it being implicated in over 300 deaths. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew its approval for the product in 1986 and Pfizer agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation after multiple lawsuits were brought against it. 2003: Pfizer has long been condemned for profiteering from AIDS drugs. In 2003 for example, it walked away from a licencing deal for its Rescriptor drug that would have made it cheaper for poorer countries. 2011: Pfizer was forced to pay compensation to families of children killed in the controversial Trovan drug trial. During the worst meningitis epidemic seen in Africa, in 1996, Pfizer ran a trial in Nigeria their new drug Trovan. Five of the 100 children who took Trovan died and it caused liver damage, while it caused lifelong disabilities in those who survived. But another group of 100 children were given the conventional “gold standard” meningitis antibiotic as a “control” group for comparison. Six of them also tragically died because, the families said, Pfizer had given them less than the recommended level of the conventional antibiotic in order to make Trovan look more effective. 2012: Pfizer had to pay around $1billion to settle lawsuits claiming its Prempro drug caused breast cancer. Prempro was used in hormone replacement therapy, usually for women going through the menopause. The settlements came after six years of trials and hardship for the women affected. 2013: Pfizer paid out $273 million to settle over 2,000 cases in the US that accused its smoking treatment drug Chantix of provoking suicidal and homicidal thoughts, self harm and severe psychological disorders. Pfizer was also accused of improperly excluding patients with a history of depression or other mental disturbances from trials for the drug. Later, in 2017, a coroner in Australia ruled that the drug had contributed to a man’s suicide. The man’s mother campaigned to change the label on the drug. 2020: Pfizer reached an agreement with thousands of customers of its depo-testosterone drug in 2018 after they sued it for increasing the likelihood of numerous issues, including heart attacks.
  - vidoc 5y ago
    Watch out, it's becoming increasingly illegal to talk about Pfizer even just in a slightly negative way. Their covid-19 vaccine product is the gold standard of safety, it's spectacularly effective, and breakthrough cases are so extremely rare it's basically fake news to claim otherwise. If it's not fake news, it's perhaps just anti-vax, white-supremacy, or russia.
    - cmoscoso 5y ago
      it's a clown world.
    - cockzor 5y ago
      Russia Russia Russia!!! Oh wait, our guy was just arrested yesterday.... :/
  - bena 5y ago
    So 6 out of how many other studies and drugs they've released without scandal? If we're applying the COVID standard to Pfizer, would their failure rate be greater than or less than COVID's death rate? If we use the 2% number I've seen around here for COVID's death rate, that means if Pfizer has over 300 drugs, these six scandals are a non-issue because they happen so rarely.
    - vixen99 5y ago
      No it's about one third of drugs according to a Yale study and it took a median of 4.2 years after the drugs were approved for safety concerns to be apparent.
    - ionwake 5y ago
      I’m perplexed why you are defending a corporation after such an excellent reply from the above poster ( and I’ve taken the vax). But l add the death rate according the administration is around 0.5% from the latest stats due to lack of testing.
      - 5y ago
- refurb 5y ago
  Again, as someone who worked with toxicology, yeah. The default is every new molecule might be highly toxic and needs to be proven otherwise. It’s why we don’t look at a molecule and say “oh, that’s not a carcinogen! No need to test”. And the same reason we run hERG tests to make sure drugs don’t give you a fatal arrhythmia (a surprising number of drugs do this and some are still on the market).
  - cglace 5y ago
    So over what time period do you believe we should wait to release a drug to the public? 10 - 25 years after discovery?
    - refurb 5y ago
      Straw man. I never said don’t release the drug or delay it decades, I said “the risk is always there”. And funny you should say 10-25 years. 10 years is pretty typical from initial molecule discovery to FDA approval.
      - cglace 5y ago
        Sorry to offend. I was referencing your assertion that all molecules are prions until proven otherwise. Also, I asked two questions. Next time try answering them before jumping to being an ass.
        onecommentman 5y ago
        The post to which you are (nominally) responding was not obnoxious in the least. Your name-calling most definitely is obnoxious. I thought this was an adult forum. Eternal November? And please show us the words where where the poster claimed that “all molecules are prions”…as you claimed. I can point to your exact words here…look forward to you doing the same.
tptacek 5y ago
It's a good thing we're all here on HN to question the safety of novel pharmaceuticals. If we weren't, maybe nobody would, and we'd all just be putting prions into ourselves. If you have something specific about this particular molecule to talk about vis a vis safety, that's an interesting comment to make. But "aspirin is a molecule but so is Mad Cow Disease so we had better be careful about new drugs" is just about the most boring, banal comment you can make. Drugs: can they be unsafe??? We'll have more at 11! We need more Derek Lowe-type drug safety discussion here, and a lot less of whatever this is.
- drewcon 5y ago
  COTD
- vibrato2 5y ago
  Derek Lowe is the biggest pharma shill in media.
raducu 5y ago
> Prions are "just" proteins According to whom? You make it sound as if at some point scientists thought that prions were "just proteins", which I'm sure is not true. I'm not saying new medicine can't have side effects a long time after ingestion.
yibg 5y ago
So we shouldn't introduce any new drugs unless it's been tested for more than 10 years? Seems like a great way to put a complete halt on drug development and have more people die / suffer from preventable diseases.

cglace 5y ago

Are you suggesting that every new molecule should be treated as if it were a prion?

yosito 5y ago
I'm not an expert, but I think if a molecule is isolated, it is possible to determine whether or not it is a prion. IIRC, prions are basically misfolded protiens that cause other protiens to misfold, like a corrupted file that passes the corruption on to every copy or derived file until the system crashes. But you can examine them before systemic problems show up. And I believe a prion has to be a protien-like molecule. Again, not an expert.
osobo 5y ago
Actually: Yes.
darthvoldemort 5y ago
I'm suggesting that sometimes a very small amount of a substance can cause catastrophic effects a decade later. That's why we do testing before we release drugs. And Pfizer isn't the hero here, they never have been. https://corporatewatch.org/pfizer-six-scandals-to-remember/ https://corporatewatch.org/pfizer-six-scandals-to-remember/ This list doesn't even include Celebrex. 1986: Pfizer had to withdraw an artificial heart valve from the market after defects led to it being implicated in over 300 deaths. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew its approval for the product in 1986 and Pfizer agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation after multiple lawsuits were brought against it. 2003: Pfizer has long been condemned for profiteering from AIDS drugs. In 2003 for example, it walked away from a licencing deal for its Rescriptor drug that would have made it cheaper for poorer countries. 2011: Pfizer was forced to pay compensation to families of children killed in the controversial Trovan drug trial. During the worst meningitis epidemic seen in Africa, in 1996, Pfizer ran a trial in Nigeria their new drug Trovan. Five of the 100 children who took Trovan died and it caused liver damage, while it caused lifelong disabilities in those who survived. But another group of 100 children were given the conventional “gold standard” meningitis antibiotic as a “control” group for comparison. Six of them also tragically died because, the families said, Pfizer had given them less than the recommended level of the conventional antibiotic in order to make Trovan look more effective. 2012: Pfizer had to pay around $1billion to settle lawsuits claiming its Prempro drug caused breast cancer. Prempro was used in hormone replacement therapy, usually for women going through the menopause. The settlements came after six years of trials and hardship for the women affected. 2013: Pfizer paid out $273 million to settle over 2,000 cases in the US that accused its smoking treatment drug Chantix of provoking suicidal and homicidal thoughts, self harm and severe psychological disorders. Pfizer was also accused of improperly excluding patients with a history of depression or other mental disturbances from trials for the drug. Later, in 2017, a coroner in Australia ruled that the drug had contributed to a man’s suicide. The man’s mother campaigned to change the label on the drug. 2020: Pfizer reached an agreement with thousands of customers of its depo-testosterone drug in 2018 after they sued it for increasing the likelihood of numerous issues, including heart attacks.
- vidoc 5y ago
  Watch out, it's becoming increasingly illegal to talk about Pfizer even just in a slightly negative way. Their covid-19 vaccine product is the gold standard of safety, it's spectacularly effective, and breakthrough cases are so extremely rare it's basically fake news to claim otherwise. If it's not fake news, it's perhaps just anti-vax, white-supremacy, or russia.
  - cmoscoso 5y ago
    it's a clown world.
  - cockzor 5y ago
    Russia Russia Russia!!! Oh wait, our guy was just arrested yesterday.... :/
- bena 5y ago
  So 6 out of how many other studies and drugs they've released without scandal? If we're applying the COVID standard to Pfizer, would their failure rate be greater than or less than COVID's death rate? If we use the 2% number I've seen around here for COVID's death rate, that means if Pfizer has over 300 drugs, these six scandals are a non-issue because they happen so rarely.
  - vixen99 5y ago
    No it's about one third of drugs according to a Yale study and it took a median of 4.2 years after the drugs were approved for safety concerns to be apparent.
  - ionwake 5y ago
    I’m perplexed why you are defending a corporation after such an excellent reply from the above poster ( and I’ve taken the vax). But l add the death rate according the administration is around 0.5% from the latest stats due to lack of testing.
    - 5y ago
refurb 5y ago
Again, as someone who worked with toxicology, yeah. The default is every new molecule might be highly toxic and needs to be proven otherwise. It’s why we don’t look at a molecule and say “oh, that’s not a carcinogen! No need to test”. And the same reason we run hERG tests to make sure drugs don’t give you a fatal arrhythmia (a surprising number of drugs do this and some are still on the market).
- cglace 5y ago
  So over what time period do you believe we should wait to release a drug to the public? 10 - 25 years after discovery?
  - refurb 5y ago
    Straw man. I never said don’t release the drug or delay it decades, I said “the risk is always there”. And funny you should say 10-25 years. 10 years is pretty typical from initial molecule discovery to FDA approval.
    - cglace 5y ago
      Sorry to offend. I was referencing your assertion that all molecules are prions until proven otherwise. Also, I asked two questions. Next time try answering them before jumping to being an ass.
      - onecommentman 5y ago
        The post to which you are (nominally) responding was not obnoxious in the least. Your name-calling most definitely is obnoxious. I thought this was an adult forum. Eternal November? And please show us the words where where the poster claimed that “all molecules are prions”…as you claimed. I can point to your exact words here…look forward to you doing the same.

tptacek 5y ago

It's a good thing we're all here on HN to question the safety of novel pharmaceuticals. If we weren't, maybe nobody would, and we'd all just be putting prions into ourselves. If you have something specific about this particular molecule to talk about vis a vis safety, that's an interesting comment to make. But "aspirin is a molecule but so is Mad Cow Disease so we had better be careful about new drugs" is just about the most boring, banal comment you can make. Drugs: can they be unsafe??? We'll have more at 11! We need more Derek Lowe-type drug safety discussion here, and a lot less of whatever this is.

drewcon 5y ago
COTD
vibrato2 5y ago
Derek Lowe is the biggest pharma shill in media.

raducu 5y ago

> Prions are "just" proteins According to whom? You make it sound as if at some point scientists thought that prions were "just proteins", which I'm sure is not true. I'm not saying new medicine can't have side effects a long time after ingestion.

yibg 5y ago

So we shouldn't introduce any new drugs unless it's been tested for more than 10 years? Seems like a great way to put a complete halt on drug development and have more people die / suffer from preventable diseases.