3 ms·

Hopefully this kind of research to go after "latent reservoirs" will bleed over into figuring out how to wipe out Herpes virii as well.

by bsder 4y ago

amluto 4y ago
If you believe these people, ADCC (antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity) is sufficient to both prevent and clear HSV, and an appropriate vaccine can induce the appropriate antibodies to pull it off. https://x-vax.com/ https://x-vax.com/ Of course, this seems to be suffering the usual fate of any vaccine technology other than spiffy mRNA vaccines against extremely urgent and well funded diseases: a neat proof of concept and some pre-clinical studies happen, followed by years of radio silence.
- XorNot 4y ago
  It's not like HIV is the easiest virus to test a vaccine against. A clinical trial against COVID is pretty ethically sound: provided the vaccine is harmless, the novel virus which most people still survive is survivable. With HIV, if the vaccine is harmless, you're still left with the fact that failure means a bunch of people get an incurable, fatal disease. HIV vaccine trials are costly and lengthy: you take a statistically at-risk population, vaccinate half, and then tell them to not assume the vaccine works, but a decent number of them are likely to (1) assume it does and (2) engage or be victimized by risky activity which leads to some of them getting HIV. At the end of that, you then tally up your groups and see if you see a substantial difference in who is now HIV positive. I can't imagine how much it sucks to be involved in the planning of those experiments. Someone, somewhere, talks to every single one of the people involved knowing full well what might happen.
  - amluto 4y ago
    My post and the GP were about HSV (herpes simplex virus), not HIV. HSV is extremely prevalent, so a simple randomized controlled trial in children should do the trick. (And there isn’t even any substantial ethical issue with participants potentially taking addition risks — kids don’t do anything to avoid HSV in the first place.) But the specific discussion is about a potential cure. Finding a few hundred HSV patients who don’t take any antivirals when they don’t have any lesions should be very, very easy as trials go — something like half the population is seropositive, many of those have occasional symptoms, and very few of those are taking antivirals to prevent symptoms.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    > Someone, somewhere, talks to every single one of the people involved knowing full well what might happen. I've known people who were involved in HIV vaccine studies, both as participants and as investigators. Everybody involved understands that side of the risk assessment ("this might not work, and you might get a placebo") from the very beginning, but the threat of HIV/AIDs is grave enough that people in the at-risk populations are happy to be involved.
  - jliptzin 4y ago
    It is not a fatal disease anymore though. I would rather have HIV than diabetes, all I have to do is take a pill every day. That’s much better than what diabetics go through.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    While it's fatal if untreated, life expectancy for people who get HIV and are diagnosed early and put on a treatment regime is now believed to be similar to the general population (though they do tend to develop other health issues earlier), so while it's still problematic to accidentally induce risky behaviours, it's at least nowhere near as bad as it used to be.
- bsder 4y ago
  Hmmm, but it hasn't gotten past Phase I after almost 8 years? An HSV vaccine would be a real moneymaker so I find it hard to believe that there isn't enough money floating around for it. A couple of mRNA HSV vaccines appear to be at the Phase I trial stage.
  - amluto 4y ago
    I personally find all this focus on mRNA to be disappointing. mRNA vaccines appear to be relatively easy to develop and produce, but I see no particular evidence that they’re good. With the efficacy numbers they seem to be currently showing against Covid, it’s not clear they would have made it through trials.
    - bsder 4y ago
      Your statement is completely contradicted by the actual vaccine development. There were a LOT of Covid vaccines with different techniques and mechanisms in development simultaneously. Nobody knew a priori which vaccine would work so we funded the hell out of all of them. mRNA came out on top relative to all the other options at 95% plus--it wasn't even close. Sinovac (inactivated virus) was at about 50% effectiveness. Novavax (protein subunit) was about 75% effectiveness and somewhat less in the Hispanic population (not understood why). Oxford/AZ/J&J/Gamelya were about 75% but had sufficient side effect to be troublesome. And, to be fair, any of these vaccines would be in general use if we didn't have the others. The only reason why the viral vector vaccines (Oxford/AZ/J&J/Gamelaya) got pulled is because we had other options (effectively, they fail a Phase III trial since alternatives exist). Finally, mRNA vaccines are NOT easy to produce. The fact that these things have to be held at -70C or -20C shows that they are quite complex. Contrast to the Sinovac vaccine which lasts forever with standard refrigeration. The medical establishment would much rather use something like Sinovac; it's quite unfortunate that it just doesn't work that well. This is not surprising--there really wasn't any progress against other Coronavirii (common cold), either, until mRNA.
  - carlmr 4y ago
    I'd pay a lot for one, even if it was out of my pocket. Not because of the annoyance of cold sores, but because I fear what these things trigger in the long term. As there is more and more research pinpointing HPV, HSV, Eppstein-Barr and Herpes Zoster, et al causing Alzheimers and auto-immune disorders down the road.

Hopefully this kind of research to go after "latent reservoirs" will bleed over into figuring out how to wipe out Herpes virii as well.

by bsder 4y ago

Hopefully this kind of research to go after "latent reservoirs" will bleed over into figuring out how to wipe out Herpes virii as well.

amluto 4y ago

If you believe these people, ADCC (antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity) is sufficient to both prevent and clear HSV, and an appropriate vaccine can induce the appropriate antibodies to pull it off. https://x-vax.com/ https://x-vax.com/ Of course, this seems to be suffering the usual fate of any vaccine technology other than spiffy mRNA vaccines against extremely urgent and well funded diseases: a neat proof of concept and some pre-clinical studies happen, followed by years of radio silence.

XorNot 4y ago
It's not like HIV is the easiest virus to test a vaccine against. A clinical trial against COVID is pretty ethically sound: provided the vaccine is harmless, the novel virus which most people still survive is survivable. With HIV, if the vaccine is harmless, you're still left with the fact that failure means a bunch of people get an incurable, fatal disease. HIV vaccine trials are costly and lengthy: you take a statistically at-risk population, vaccinate half, and then tell them to not assume the vaccine works, but a decent number of them are likely to (1) assume it does and (2) engage or be victimized by risky activity which leads to some of them getting HIV. At the end of that, you then tally up your groups and see if you see a substantial difference in who is now HIV positive. I can't imagine how much it sucks to be involved in the planning of those experiments. Someone, somewhere, talks to every single one of the people involved knowing full well what might happen.
- amluto 4y ago
  My post and the GP were about HSV (herpes simplex virus), not HIV. HSV is extremely prevalent, so a simple randomized controlled trial in children should do the trick. (And there isn’t even any substantial ethical issue with participants potentially taking addition risks — kids don’t do anything to avoid HSV in the first place.) But the specific discussion is about a potential cure. Finding a few hundred HSV patients who don’t take any antivirals when they don’t have any lesions should be very, very easy as trials go — something like half the population is seropositive, many of those have occasional symptoms, and very few of those are taking antivirals to prevent symptoms.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  > Someone, somewhere, talks to every single one of the people involved knowing full well what might happen. I've known people who were involved in HIV vaccine studies, both as participants and as investigators. Everybody involved understands that side of the risk assessment ("this might not work, and you might get a placebo") from the very beginning, but the threat of HIV/AIDs is grave enough that people in the at-risk populations are happy to be involved.
- jliptzin 4y ago
  It is not a fatal disease anymore though. I would rather have HIV than diabetes, all I have to do is take a pill every day. That’s much better than what diabetics go through.
- vidarh 4y ago
  While it's fatal if untreated, life expectancy for people who get HIV and are diagnosed early and put on a treatment regime is now believed to be similar to the general population (though they do tend to develop other health issues earlier), so while it's still problematic to accidentally induce risky behaviours, it's at least nowhere near as bad as it used to be.
bsder 4y ago
Hmmm, but it hasn't gotten past Phase I after almost 8 years? An HSV vaccine would be a real moneymaker so I find it hard to believe that there isn't enough money floating around for it. A couple of mRNA HSV vaccines appear to be at the Phase I trial stage.
- amluto 4y ago
  I personally find all this focus on mRNA to be disappointing. mRNA vaccines appear to be relatively easy to develop and produce, but I see no particular evidence that they’re good. With the efficacy numbers they seem to be currently showing against Covid, it’s not clear they would have made it through trials.
  - bsder 4y ago
    Your statement is completely contradicted by the actual vaccine development. There were a LOT of Covid vaccines with different techniques and mechanisms in development simultaneously. Nobody knew a priori which vaccine would work so we funded the hell out of all of them. mRNA came out on top relative to all the other options at 95% plus--it wasn't even close. Sinovac (inactivated virus) was at about 50% effectiveness. Novavax (protein subunit) was about 75% effectiveness and somewhat less in the Hispanic population (not understood why). Oxford/AZ/J&J/Gamelya were about 75% but had sufficient side effect to be troublesome. And, to be fair, any of these vaccines would be in general use if we didn't have the others. The only reason why the viral vector vaccines (Oxford/AZ/J&J/Gamelaya) got pulled is because we had other options (effectively, they fail a Phase III trial since alternatives exist). Finally, mRNA vaccines are NOT easy to produce. The fact that these things have to be held at -70C or -20C shows that they are quite complex. Contrast to the Sinovac vaccine which lasts forever with standard refrigeration. The medical establishment would much rather use something like Sinovac; it's quite unfortunate that it just doesn't work that well. This is not surprising--there really wasn't any progress against other Coronavirii (common cold), either, until mRNA.
- carlmr 4y ago
  I'd pay a lot for one, even if it was out of my pocket. Not because of the annoyance of cold sores, but because I fear what these things trigger in the long term. As there is more and more research pinpointing HPV, HSV, Eppstein-Barr and Herpes Zoster, et al causing Alzheimers and auto-immune disorders down the road.