Ebola Vaccine Passes Initial Human Tests 140
An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com has an article about the first successful tests of an Ebola vaccine on human subjects." From the article: "Nabel and colleagues at the NIH's Vaccine Research Center developed a vaccine made of DNA strands that encode three Ebola proteins. They boosted that vaccine with a weakened cold-related virus, and the combination protected monkeys exposed to Ebola. The first human testing looked just at the vaccine's DNA portion; the full combination will be tested later. At a microbiology meeting in Washington on Friday, Nabel and colleagues reported seeing no worrisome side effects when comparing six people given dummy shots with 21 volunteers given increasing doses of the DNA vaccine."
Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:3, Insightful)
They have to be. Otherwise it would be a serious medical ethics violation that could end their careers.
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:5, Informative)
BULLSHIT (Score:2)
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:1)
Illegal human experimentation sans knowledge and sans consent is a fact. Spare us stupid excuses.
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:2)
Really? Well then you have some reading to do... (Score:1)
Dept. of Energy Human Radiation Experiments [doe.gov]
Tuskekee Syphilis Experimentation [thetalkingdrum.com]
Essay on Human Experimentation [micahbooks.com] ...
...
Though I just yanked the top most of my mind and located that on Google for you, this should get you started.
Re:Really? Well then you have some thinking to do (Score:1)
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:2)
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:5, Funny)
No problem. Just take new NyQuil-EB: It's the one cold medication especially designed for when you have those itchy, sneezy, bleeding-out-of-every-orifice cold symptoms.
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:2)
I volunteered for this a few years ago when I heard about. Unfortunately I didn't feel like flying half-way across the US to partake. As I recall, it was about a week after the trial was announced and they only had 2 other volunteers.
Re:Medical experiments for the lot of us... (Score:2, Informative)
I was compensated, something like $25 a visit, hard to remember now, but in terms of travel time, not to mention a whole lot of holes poked in my arms, I wouldn't say that was the main attraction.
A friend talked to me about it who spent quite a lot of time in Africa, and I joined him.
I'm looking forward to finding out how long the antibodies remain (without the cold virus to help 'em spread a bit, probably not long) and w
What is Ebola? (Score:1)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a lot of valid potentiality that gets drummed up as hype by doomsayers, the media, and anyone else who has something to gain by promoting a state of fear, interest or worry in people.
Total worldwide ebola deaths since 1976 are 1,500. If you catch it, there's an 80% chance you'll die.
But then there have been 1.2million people in the US alone killed in fatal car accidents in the same time period. If you're caught in a fatal car accident, there's a pretty big chance you'll die too.
Avian flu is known to have killed under 100 people worldwide, since 1996. Worldwide deaths from normal influenza currently reach 500,000 EVERY SINGLE YEAR worldwide. FIVE MILLION PEOPLE since 1996.
Read the above and you see how the panic effect of statistics is all in how the info is presented. Don't rely on alarmist messages of any type (this one included) to base your fears on, go & read up as much background info as you can. It makes the only sense.
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2)
But its 5x as deadly as teh 1918 flue pandemic which killed millions. In this global service economy it can easily kill over a billion people and wipe out 1 out of 6 people.
Also auto deaths are very high. I drive with caution.
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:1, Insightful)
People are not afraid of the common flu, since the death rate nowadays is what, less than 0.01%? However, both Ebola and Avian Flu have a high chance of killing you, if you get it.
I think that the concern currently is the transmission of the Avian flu virus like the common flu, i.e. influentza with a death rate of 50% or so.
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ebola is less of an immediate threat, but there are some signs that it, or something related, could mutate to an airborne or aerosol form. On the scale of risk the probability is low, but there's some convincing arguments that some past plagues - even the Black Death - were hemorregic fevers.
It therefore makes sense that we take some preventative measures against potential threats now. Personally I'm very glad that the WHO hyped up Avian Flu because at least governments have started to take some precautions, pump money into vaccine development etc. If we are luckly and the virus doesn't mutate for another year or two then there's a good chance that the death rate from an epidemic could be substantially cut. Reducing the number of cases of Avian Flu in humans by culling birds and inducing fear in the populations where it occurs all helps by reducing the chances the virus has to mutate.
Of course in some cases the percieved threat will never have been real, and in others preventative actions will stall a major disaster so the sceptics will argue there was no major threat in the first place. Whatever, in both human and economic terms the cost of a small amount of hype and preparatory action now will pay off many, many times over.
Scare tactics are bad. (Score:2)
Inducing fear in populations leads to a distribution nightmare for treatments.
Due to all the scare and paranoia, there is a worldwide shortage of Tamiflu despite the fact that the actual need for the drug is far lower than the production capability. The problem is that tons of people who have no actual need for it are hoarding
Re:Scare tactics are bad. (Score:2)
When in 2002/3 when it surfaced again seriously in Vietnam it was again almost completely ig
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2)
Avian flu has the potential to reach out and zap everyone, which is why it's a big dea
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2)
No -- that's what the guy next to you is for.
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:1)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:1)
Wikipedia article not sourced (Score:1)
I'm not saying you are wrong about the 2-21 days, merely that you use a bad argument to support your case. Instead, you could have used Questions and Answers about Ebola [cdc.gov]. Don't worry, I already added that as a source in Wikipedia.
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2)
No, if an outbreak started in Kinshasha instead of in the jungle, the possibilities of rapid viral doom greatly increase. For one, Kinshasha is a big enough city with various modes of travel out of the city, and enough people "flux". As it stands, since it happens first in the boondocks, it's easy enough for it to be isolated relatively quickly once the alarm gets out.
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:1)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:1)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2)
Re:What is Ebola? (Score:2, Informative)
Ebola makes liquid smoothies out of people, and the scare in Reston in 1989 shows how drastic an epidemic could be. If a strain of Ebola resembling Zaire in lethality towards humans and the airborne characteristics of Reston were to evolve, it would be a
Immunity (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Immunity (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Immunity (Score:2)
Re:Immunity (Score:2)
Ebola tends to get transmitted in the Congo because of human-human contact. Person gets ebola, gets sick, people tending him get his blood on them, they get it ebola. But in a small village, there is likely to be one smart person who observes, "if everyone else
Re:Immunity (Score:2, Insightful)
As for malaria, it is far from eradicated.
Re:Immunity (Score:1)
malaria most definitely hasn't been eradicated, and although preventative measures are available, it's still not unthinkable to contract it in relatively developed areas.
all it requires is some blood-suckers and a single infected person... think about how many lawyers exist YOUR side of the world!
we're sending you an infected person over right now, we'll see how long you last.
Re:Immunity (Score:1)
Will you agree not to send any lawyers now? =/
Re:Immunity (Score:2)
Re:Immunity (Score:1)
Many people still get malaria in the poor parts of the world to this day. It's only a thing of the past in the rich western countries.
You just have to wonder though, does it have the potential to mutate and develop new/different strands?
Yes, there are already multiple strains of the virus. Their mortality rate ranges from "migh
Re:Immunity (Score:2)
Re:Immunity (Score:2)
Malaria is actually making a comeback, which some attribute to the banning of DDT. They say that DDT, used properly is effective and safe. You just don't go spraying whole countries with it.
Yay! (Score:1)
waste of resources (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:waste of resources (Score:1)
Re:waste of resources (Score:1)
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
Humane attitude you got there. To save even more money, let's never treat anyone - including you if you happen to catch something. It's too expensive. Honestly, tell me, if you catch a disease why should we bother treating you if it's too expensive to treat others? I sure can't think of a reason.
A clue for you, friend: when you're dying of a disease you don't give a damn about how much the cure costs. And believe it or not, some people in the world aren't as selfish and tight as you and actually want to
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
To save even more money, let's never treat anyone - including you if you happen to catch something.
Thanks for the strawman, but ProfaneMF never said that at all - he/she said spend the money on something else instead, and I quote, "You could use the money to prevent a million kids from getting polio instead." Brush up on your reading skills.
ProfaneMF is correct ... Ebola kills a miniscule number of people (a few dozen a year, give or take), while millions of people die each year from curable diseases lik
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
Mistshadow, I agree with you. I feel like walking up to PMF and telling him (or her), "You have cancer. There is a cure, but it costs too much to manufacture. Have a nice day!"
Polio is almost as uncommon as ebola and far less deadly. Today only about 1000 new cases of polio occur each year, and the WHO is working to eliminate the virus completely, despite civil war in Sudan and a boost in cases in Nigeria, which claimed the West was tainting the vaccine with sterility substances and HIV to destroy Islam. A
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
Besides, learning how to combat Ebola may help us fight other similar viruses, especially if it's generic enough to work on all strains of Ebola, including the one that hasn't passed to humans yet (I forget the name offhand, but it was discovered in a research facility in the US).
Re:waste of resources (Score:1)
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
Re:waste of resources (Score:5, Informative)
It could be used to help fight an outbreak. Right now the only thing we have is isolation. If we could send health workers a few dozen miles ahead of the outbreak to start innoculating people, that might stop the outbreak in its tracks. Of course, it may take a while for full immunity to take effect but I imagine even partial immunity is better than nothing.
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
Which is all the reason why there is such a hubbub about SARS and bird flu. Some of it is panic mongering. Some of it is plain and simple "the potential of this to do bad shit on a wide scale in a short time is worth scaring people and developing a vaccine quickly".
Are we worried about the people who actually live in the Congo ju
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
- They didn't say how difficult it was to create a vaccine. Maybe it was easy. Some vaccines are easier to create than others.
- Working on a project like this often leads to discoveries that are useful in fighting other diseases
- Just because there have been limited outbreaks in the past doesn't mean there won't be worse ones in the future (although I think Ebola is too deadly to spread very far)
- Ebola can be used in biological terrorist attacks, and it would likely be quite effective.
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
Ebola outbreaks currently burn themselves out pretty fast because they are (a) horrific and very deadly, so really motivate the population to take action and (b) only transmitted by blood contact. However there have been some indications of a monkey strain that can transmit either airborne or aerosol.
Add to that there's a good argument that the Black Death was not bubonic pl
Re:waste of resources (Score:2)
The worry is that a person who gets infected for instance in Africa might start feeling ill, panic and head for an airport. They arrive at the airport and start leaking infected blood - worst case scenario it becomes airborne somehow and the whole airport gets infected. A few weeks later and
When I was a youngun' (Score:5, Funny)
Parent getting a 4 shows /.s moderation is broken (Score:2)
Re:Parent getting a 4 shows /.s moderation is brok (Score:2)
As for 'wasting' mod points, I look at each comment and if I really think it deserves to be modded up or down, I'll spend the point. Most of the time I have mod points that expire unallocated.
So then.... (Score:1)
Who first?
Wohooo its totally cured! (Score:2)
Least Developed Countries (Score:2)
If not, then the research was moot.
Re:Least Developed Countries (Score:2)
Re:Least Developed Countries (Score:2)
We have no problem testing new cancer treatments that are on the verge of lethal for "normal" people on terminal cancer patients...why is this any different, then?
If I think I've develop
Re:Least Developed Countries (Score:2)
Well, you tell me: Is there a difference between a potentially lethal drug being used on a terminal patient, and a potentially lethal drug (yes, the old one killed some people) being used on someone that's just going to have diarrhea for a few days?
Sure, you could argue that those people would die from dehydration
Re:Least Developed Countries (Score:2)
"If I think I've developed a new treatment or prevention of cholera or typhoid, I'm not testing it in Anchorage, AK. I'm going to Manila, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janiero, Cairo, etc. to see if it actually works, once I'm pretty sure that the drug won't kill those it is put into outright. I can't just sneak into a water treatment center and surreptitiously route sewage discharge into the drinking water supply bypassing the filters and Cl2 treatments, etc."
If it were really that importan
Wow (Score:2)
You really don't want to be in the placebo group (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You really don't want to be in the placebo grou (Score:2)
Adverse reaction considerations (Score:2, Informative)
Also, it is yet to be seen if side effects appear in the patients in the presence of Ebola virus, since all these subjects were not exposed to Ebola virus (ofcour
Re:Adverse reaction considerations (Score:2)
And 21 people is indeed a small trial, but this is probably just a stepping stone to larger trials. And some diseases are worth the risk of possible side effects.
Re:Adverse reaction considerations (Score:1)
Re:Adverse reaction considerations (Score:2)
Grade A Infection (Score:4, Funny)
A girl that I dated... (Score:2)
Yeah, that's a weird subject for an ebola thread.
I once dated a girl who worked in a pathology lab identifying contagious disease samples. When she'd talk about it, she made it sound like she dealt with some pretty serious stuff, so I asked her what she had worked with that day. I don't recall all of the different things, but among them were two different types of ebola. That kind of surprised me. I mean, the 3 or 4 different types of HIV you can expect - with hundreds of m
Re:A girl that I dated... (Score:2)
What is even more interesting about Ebola is that Ebola antibodies are
Cure already found. (Score:2, Funny)
Wait? (Score:1)
Interesting program. (Score:5, Funny)
"What sort of thing, doc?"
"Well, nausea, itching, your entire body melting, and there's a chance of drowsiness. So avoid using heavy machinery."
errrm (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, antibiotics are reserved to fight bacterial infections, but it's stupid to say you can not vaccinate against bacterial infections and only virii. Why do we take pre-emptive measures to fight bacterial meningitis by way of vaccination?
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it is my believe a vaccination is merely a precautionary cure regardless of the type of ilness (bacteria / virus)
Re:errrm (Score:2)
This is why vaccines against bacterial infections (lyme, meningitis) have only recently appeared on the market.
For a very long time, only viral infections could be prevented by vaccination.
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:2)
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:2)
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:2)
Um, Ebola is a virus. Check the article. Or check google; you can even buy it on eBay...
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:1)
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, we should get terminology correct. I will not point out why the "ebola virus" would not be affected by antibiotics.
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:5, Informative)
Khyber, Ebola is a virus, not a bacteria.
Ebola is a filovirus, one of the simplest and deadliest that we know of on earth.
If I remember correctly, it is a string of biological matter that consists of six proteins and looks under a microscope like a shepherd's crook.
It infects cells in the human body - both blood and tissue - and replicates quite rapidly utilizing the body's own RNA strands until the cell literally bursts and releases quite a large quantity of the newly formed virus, which then infects more cells and repeats the process.
Ebola's only purpose is to replicate inside the warm biological matter of humans and monkeys, destroying cellular tissue as it goes about its "life cycle".
Ebola Zaire kills about 9 out of 10 people it comes into direct contact with, and Marburg - another filovirus - kills about 8 out of 10.
Ebola Reston was first found in Washington state in a storage facility built to house monkeys. It infected two workers who came into contact with dead or infected monkeys, but it didn't kill them.
Ebola Reston and Ebola Zaire are 1 marker apart in their protein make-up, but Zaire kills humans while Reston doesn't seem to, yet.
However, Ebola Reston seems capable of moving through the air, hence monkeys in the storage warehouse getting sick without contact with each other but all breathing the same re-circulated air conditioned air inside.
Ebola Zaire, deadly, only contractable through contact with infected bodily fluids. Ebola Reston, one protein different and apparently able to be breathed out by an infected person and infect someone else, like a cold.
Think about that.
I hope that this anti-viral vaccine is able to be produced quickly and cheaply because we don't want an outbreak of mutated Reston.
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:1)
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:2)
Re:VACCINE FOR A BACTERIA??? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm still a lot more scared of getting hit by a car.
And, frankly, I'd say that Africa should worry a lot more about AIDS than about Ebola.
Not Washington state (Score:2)
Also I believe there is a second African strain of Ebola that is less lethal than Zaire but still lethal to humans.