Hah; I can hear RFK jr already.
[Gravely voice] “Look if you want to put that unproven poison in your body I would not recommend doing when alternatives exist, like oranges, and Vitamin D, and death.”
I’d be surprised if RFK used the Oxford Comma.
Wong says the team’s new vaccine could also provide protection against coronaviruses that cause influenza and the common cold.
Ugh science reporting is terrible. “This new tool could stop the cockroaches that cause bedbugs.” See how stupid that sounds?
Influenza is caused by influenza viruses.
That is amazing. Yay good news :')
FDA approval in never.
Latest FDA guidance: Take vitamin A, wash it down with raw milk, and attend virus spreading parties to build natural immunity.
That last part actually works by culling the people who have the most severe symptoms. So you would be building natural immunity in the population, over a long period of time, by dying before you produce offspring.
Only for more genetically stable diseases that don’t mutate into new strains every single year.
Guess we’ll just have to cull the herd every year then.
Except you supercharge the mutation of the disease as well, so its a rinse and repeat cycle.
So human keeps dropping and more remote work?
The ones forced to go to work keep dropping.
Sad truth. The heros called what again during covid?
Shit, I already have kids. Might as well skip it then.
Yeah, imma do this instead. The FDA seems trustworthy.
FDA approval in never.
I’m not even bothering with FDA recommendations anymore with Kennedy in charge. I’ll be reading the Canada Health and NHS (UK) notices. If it means crossing a national border to get a vaccine, I’m onboard.
there are some international pharm companies that produces vaccines, im sure they wouldnt mind doing it,. glaxo kline smith is one of them, although people have dislike the company for many reasons.
Hard for them to approve it if there is no FDA.
Theoretically, this could approved in Europe, which is fine for me. But I doubt the pharmaceutical industry will let a working, permanent immunisation against the common cold happen. That would mean billions and trillions of lost business.
I never understand it when this argument is made. It assumes that there aren’t entities out there making $0 on the common cold that would refuse to take the absolute fucking windfall that would be generated if such an immunization were to be brought to the market.
Like “oh, you know, we’d like to make this immunization and make billions of dollars ourselves but these OTHER guys are already making billions of dollars and we sure wouldn’t want to step on their toes.”
Well, consider all the money that pharmaceutical companies make every year on over the counter medicines for cold symptoms. I’m sure it’s not a perfect example of malfeasance like “hey, we have this perfect cure for the cold in our pockets but we make more profits from our over the counter cold medicines so let’s just bury the cure”, but through a complicated process they often end up at a similar result.
Recent example: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits
I sorta don’t understand this. A TB vaccine has definately been around for awhile and the article does not seem to say what would make this one special. Is it the same vaccine with the thing they says makes vaccines more potent added and they are just not adding it???
It sounds like this new vaccine would be 50% effective (including adults?), according to the ProPublica article. The old vaccine, BCG, appears to only be 37% effective on children, not adults (based on a web search - edit: on a second look, different articles are claiming wildly different effectiveness rates for BCG). The disease kills 1.6 million people annually. In other words, it sounds like this new vaccine would save tons of lives compared to the old one.
i think only the USa DOESNT routinely vaccinate it against it, because they havnt found much efficacy, TB endemic areas do vaccinate against it, but it has limited efficacy. on the plus side, it is used with cancer therapy as a indirect effect to stimulate the immune system.
The point is that some businesses react rather violently on the loss of billions.
its pretty hard to vaccinate against the common cold, since coronavirus only represents like 15ish percent, the majority are all rhinoviruses there arnt any vaccines for those because theres too many strains(like 200+) to deal with, and also its so self-limiting its not worht it to produce anyway, in addition to trying to figure out which virus is causing the cold and which strain. also there a bunch of other viruses that causes colds, like entero,adeno, parainfluenza, RSV,etc.
I’m well aware of that, but taking only 15% out of a multi-billion-a-year market is still money. And there has been research into dealing with rhinoviruses in general, too, so that would take an even larger chunk.
FDA? That still exists?
Keep me updated on which countries approve its use so I can add them to my travel plans.
Might be a great excuse to visit Denmark… I hear it’s wonderful there.
It is. Come visit (but like be respectful please it’s nice)
- source: live here
Are you made of Legos?
You are what you eat
🧱
For real, can a tourist get vaccinated there? I can’t get it in my country.
I have absolutely no idea. I wouldn’t know how to do it without a yellow card and that requires residence. Maybe there’s clinics?
Ah, no worries, I’ll do research. Thanks anyway
It is not really. But I guess that everything compares as wonderful compared to Palestine, Iran, Ukraine and the US, right now.
- source: live here
Make sure they’re also countries that will give vaccines to foreigners. I had a hell of a time getting routine flu shots in Spain, Hungary and Thailand. The systems are often set up with the assumption that you’re a citizen or have a national healthcare ID of some sort. Without that, good luck finding a clinic who will give you a shot.
india and thailand caters to medical tourism, i asusme alot will be either going to canada(maybe) or asia.
Not really a valid assumption. Most vaccines are not available at tourist clinics, though maybe they should be, seems like the demand is increasing.
Now consider that Scripps Research, who is developing this, is US-based and receives a lot of federal government funding, and that Trump/Musk/DOGE have been slashing and burning all kinds of federal science staffing and funding. Also consider that their main federal funding comes from HHS, which RFK Jr., notorious vaccine hater, heads.
Then weep. Progress on this may be stalled for a long time.
Maybe, or maybe some other country poaches them.
True, that could also happen, but I wonder how transferable this type of research project is. Does the research lead actually own it and can take it with him or her to a new place, or does Scripps own it? I don’t know the answer.
Flash drive or cloud transfer when you flee the country, the modern replacement for briefcases full of blueprints.
It’s not an question of if, it’s a when thing at this point. Just like we happily scooped up talent fleeing the Nazis, someone is going to make it easy for highly skilled US citizens to bail. Probably Europe, since they seem to be stepping up to the plate in a lot of ways.
File --> export
No way they’ll let Americans have it
Think about all the capitalist profit businesses make for common cold symptoms alone, with over the counter meds and stuff.
No way something like this would be allowed in our current society.
Just an interesting thing to share… I lived in the US until I was 40 and moved to Norway. They just don’t sell “cold remedy” meds here, or at least not even close to the extent the US does. We have sore throat drops, and OTC pain relief. Some cough medicine but it’s pretty weak imo. I suspect this is because the expectation here is that if you’re sick, you take sick time off work. You can rest and recover. Going to the doc to get sick time approved is at most like $20 and if you and your doc have a good relationship, you can do this via email. In the US, you’re expected to power through unless contagious and even then, just try to pretend you’re okay.
What you’re saying hits home.
Conservatives have this tough guy routine, that going to work when you’re sick is just manly or “alpha”. It’s bullshit. Then they spread it so everyone else can get it.
But the tough thing to do, is go to work, after pumping yourself full of nyquil, or Tylenol, or whatever. It’s just so stupid and obvious. They’re so “tough” yet they need all this OTC junk to ease the symptoms. Not to mention, not being productive at work, cause you feel like shit. As well as taking longer to get better.
Personally, I prefer not to take any meds at all. Just go home, sleep a lot, drink water, eat soup, chill, rest, etc.
Back at the start of the millenium. Way before even one day work from home was common. I worked at a place where if you were sick and did not take a sick day they expected you to work from home. You would get some ribbing for being in the office and coughing. That place was great. Also always had hand sanitizer and tissue.
I just got over being sick for 2 weeks and even though I was lucky enough to have that much sick time, I absolutely wanted the strongest meds I could get because I was miserable.
you’re expected to power through unless contagious
No, you’re expected to power through and they don’t give a fuck whether you’re contagious or not.
dextrotomorphan, is the cough medicine, i find it has little effect on coughs. i believes its the 1st generations(diphenhydramine, doxylamine,bropheneramine,etc) anti-histamine that is preventing the smptoms, because also prevents mucus production via anti-cholingernic effects and the cough, besides the fever.
and pehnyleprine has no effect on you what so ever, you need the pseudoephedrine, but its regulated in the usa, and only available at the pharmacy counter, because Pseudoephedrine is used to make METH. dextromorphan is also recently been regulated, requiring ID, because stupid young children teens, are robotripping on it apparently.
However, I’d expect businesses would also want to reduce cold and covid’s impact on employee productivity? Wouldn’t fewer employees needing to take sick time because of cold/covid increase their profits? Outside of businesses that profit from cold/covid, I don’t see what the motivation for businesses would be against this vaccination.
Agreed, but you could spin it a number of ways. The “tough guy work ethic” cultural propaganda is to just go to work when sick. The fact that your not as productive when you feel shitty, well, the owners would have to actually care. Their argument is they’d probably prefer a sick employee only working at 70% their normal productivity, is better than letting them stay home.
The other much bigger thing is, how much money is over the counter meds industry profiting? Do they have lawyers and lobbyists? Is this profit entrenched in Wall Street investors and quarterly profits?
Which wins? Altruism for the worker bee, or rich peoples money and power?
But does that outweigh the amount of days lost from people taking sick days?
Oh sorry America. The civilised world would be making that calculation though.
Vaccine tourism will become a thing.
Knowing the current administration, it will end up just like abortion tourism… but instead of only being persecuted in red states, it will be federally outlawed.
medical tourism to places like india, thailand,etc for dental and medical treatment.
No FDA means no one to stop it! 😂
We’ll have an fda, once they rip it to sheds they’ll stock it with whoever they want to and then say look we fixed the fraud, listen to these guys now. Having a government agency that can say “no drug that competes with an oligarchs drug you can’t be approved” or “yes, you can shove unproven computer tech into people brains” is far to powerful to throw completely away.
is far to powerful to throw completely away.
They could do the same with DoE and it isn’t saving that agency. There’s no particular reason the FDA would fare any better. They’ll strip it to the bone and some states will cheerfully make it completely legal for their citizens.
We’ll see. I feel like there’s more value keeping around the institution which says what substances and food you can or cannot sell and who can or cannot sell them than there is in the institution dedicated to making sure everyone has schooling, indoctrination is easier if people are stupid.
They’ll start giving returning Americans titer tests and locking up people with immunity up
Is this annually or once and done? I may just go over seas if it’s a one-time deal.
Doubtful you’ll be able to leave as a private citizen without a good reason tbh.
What? I’m going to Europe for a ‘camping trip’. They aren’t limiting private citizens travel in or out, yet. But, I certainly will not be bringing my phone.
Yeah, but if you’re a certain shade of brown, you might not make it back in.
Or gay, or have voiced opposition to the Trump administration: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/germany-investigates-after-national-with-green-card-arrested-at-us-border
To my knowledge, there is nothing indicating this is the plan at this time.
And I sincerely doubt we’ll “ever” have that policy. Because the people most likely to go on leisure (or even work) international trips are generally middle/upper middle class who need to be kept placated to make sure they still post memes on reddit but secretly cheer that the fbi is going to protect their teslas.
Whether other countries are going to block our access is a different conversation but is also unlikely.
That said: Anyone who CAN get out should work on getting out.
The venn diagram of totalitarian regimes which restrict the free movement of citizens is basically a circle, it’s coming as soon as they think they can get away with it
The US is following the (modern) russian model.
Outside of war time concerns over draft dodgers (which is not restricted to totalitarian regimes), there are no “extra” restrictions on citizens outside of needing a passport. There ARE restrictions placed on “political opponents” but that can be considered an extension of the “normal” restrictions on people with pending legal issues and so forth and gets into a greater discussion of the role of law in a society.
No. The big restriction is monetary. Which is also how control is maintained and oligarchs are protected.
The US is rapidly speedruning a christofacist oligarchy. But that is still going to be a lot closer to a Russia or a China than a North Korea. The latter is possible and should be feared but would require a massive shift that takes away the “Things are bad for me but they are worse for Them” that conservatives globally depend on.
russia mostly, since alot of red state more or less mirrors russia in some form. and they are the ones that had a hand in gops rise to power, and continuance, and funding right wing groups(white supremecist, alt-right). china has thier own problems, and would rather steal tech instead of developing it themselves.
doubt we’ll “ever” have that policy.
They likely won’t do it just to do it; driving forces would be required.
If we reach a point where there are serious side effects of lacking engineers, doctors, and nurses due to expatriation, they’ll stop allowing travel. It’ll come as part of a martial law crackdown.
In the long run, people won’t put up with it; in the short run… would you REALLY put it past them?
You assume that the republicans and oligarchs actually care about the US being a thriving economy or even country. They don’t. They are ripping the copper out of the wall (and the gold out of fort knox…).
Which will basically get it to the same state as Russia and China. The vast majority of the population will be in a really bad way. But those who benefit will likely stick around as they can feel good about being so much better off than everyone around them. And, more importantly the people who CAN consider international travel (temporary or permanent) won’t be incentivized to.
Like I said. I can definitely see a path to a North Korea level of lockdown. But we have the template for what “works” and it is Russia and China.
We’ve got a lot of Americans who want everything tested for 20 years to make sure your eyes don’t fall out after a decade.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. I’m sitting here wondering if we’ll even have a flu shot available for next winter, let alone a new vaccine that can protect from Covid and the common cold.
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After the most recent flu or cold I had. I would do anything for a cold vaccine. Flu shot likely kept me safe from that last bug I had. But still would like a cold vaccine to.
About a month ago I had the flu - the real flu - for the first time either in ages, or in my life, and I actually had gotten vaccinated in autumn, and man, I thought I was dying. For two weeks I couldn’t do anything. Just looking at the stairs gave me endocarditis. I never run fevers and I was just popping painkillers to keep it under 40 degrees. That was nuts. So during and afterwards I mostly been thinking about three things: 1. I would have died for real if I didn’t have some basic protection from the vaccine, 2. I want a vaccine against the common cold as well, and 3. Jesus Christ please I don’t want to die from a stupid cold or flu, at least make it Covid, but that’s such a lowball way to go
I had a similar experience, also a month ago. Lots of people I know had it similar the last few months. Is there another wave of this going around and this time I’m noticing?
From my knowledge, here in Germany, there was a strong flu wave this winter. Basically everyone I know got a severe and long RTI, but I mostly know other parents of kindergarteners, so there is a big bias. However, it wasn’t even localized to my area, my family is in another part of the country and similar story there.
I am subscribed to a kind of weekly questionnaire about RTI by Robert Koch Institute, there is also a report attached to it. I remember reading that there was, indeed, a stronger RTI and flu wave this year.
Drowning is probably the best way to go excluding the obvious opiate overdose forever sleepy time. It’s not drawn out like freezing to death.
Jesus Christ no no no, I take it back, I take dying from a cold please
I don’t fancy spending a few minutes trying to breathe water.
*seconds
You’ve never seen a drowning, have you?
Guilty as charged, enlighten me.
I had the cold and COVID back-to-back. I felt much worse with the cold. It turned into a chest infection that took about three weeks to get over. And then right as I got over that, I caught COVID. I was just tired with COVID. Like I had a fever and some coughing, but aside from that I was just sleepy.
Joke’s on me though; That was over a year ago, and I still have long COVID. The coughing is gone, but I’m still fucking tired constantly. Doesn’t matter how much sleep I get. Ironically, it means I sleep a lot less, because if I’m going to be tired regardless, why waste the time being asleep?
I think “long covid” is something that has existed for a long time, well not long covid specifically but long term side effects of colds and flu.
A few years before covid I got a terrible cold or flu. Name a symptom of the flu and I probably had it, it was hard to even get myself to the toilet.
But what was so unique is even after the aches, the cough, and sore throat etc symptoms disappeared I didn’t recover. I was exhausted. Even weeks later I’d fluctuate between days of being fine to the next barely able to get out of bed.
It took at least 3 months after traditional flu symptoms had finished till that started to taper off. And at least another 3 before I started feeling truly myself again.
cold might be harder since theres different viral species that causes it, and rhinoviruses alone account for 80-90% have 99 different types. flu is worst thought since its symptoms are more severe, and dangerous to some people.
Also, fuck cancer. (Cancer vaccines may be next, the end of the article.)
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I see this often, but cancer isn’t caused by a viral infection. Are there vaccines that exist to prevent non-viral related diseases?
Not true at all. Viruses do induce cancer, likely much more than we realise. HPV is the clearest example, but also EBV and Hep B https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-019-0558-9
There are also several cancer vaccines showing success in stage 3 trials: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-023-00072-0
Vaccines at a simple level just train your immune system to attack certain proteins. If you could identify a protein that differentiates cancer cells from healthy cells then you could make a vaccine for cancer.
I do not have a degree in biology, take this info with a grain of salt. If a credentialed individual has better info, please speak up.
Some of them can be. HPV is the typical cause of cervical cancer, which is the one I can think of off the top of my head.
That’s not actually true. There’s a bunch of viruses that can cause cancer:
So we’d be vaccinating those infections, not cancer itself
Fine by me.
Sure ok.
Vaccines could theoretically be used to train the immune system to essentially attack cancer cells in much the same way we already use immunotherapy. Though as far as I understand it, we have yet to fully develope one.
I’m a bit concerned about that TBH. I’m not a doctor or medical researcher though so if they make one I’ll probably be an early adopter anyway. But since cancer cells are body cells with a problem, it feels like a screw up on a cancer vaccine would just lead to some exciting new autoimmune disease.
I know my state would find a way to ban this shit. They hate anything that prevents needless suffering.
The EU will welcome your scientists and Pharma companies with open arms.
*country
They still won’t take it.
Who gives a shit? I will take it as will my entire family.
Herd immunity and whatnot
Necessary to protect people with weak immune systems, certainly. But we rarely get better than 60% of the population flu vaxed. It is still vital to deter higher instances of hospitalization and to blunt the rate of spread.
You realize if the morons die out everyone else remaining still has heerd immunity, right?
There are people who have genuine medical reasons to not take vaccines (e.g. an allergy to a common ingredient) or who are so immunocompromised that a vaccine won’t keep them alive, and they rely on other people getting vaccinated to avoid dying. It’s not just antivaxers who antivaxers kill.
it’s not just antivaxers who antivaxers kill.
Reminded of the family whose kid died of measles saying “Our other kids survived, so it was fine”.
That young child wasn’t the one who had been deluded with misinformation.
Selection bias. All the survivors will say “See! We didn’t need the Fauchi Ouchie!” while all the dead won’t say anything.
I’ve straight up been at an event where a speaker asked “Raise your hand if you’ve died because you didn’t get vaccinated! Nobody? That’s what I thought.”
Yes, but we’re slowly evolving away the dumbest and most dangerous of the population.
In the past we sent them running eagerly into the meat grinder of war.
Now they’re building up like cord wood, and starting to smolder.
we’re slowly evolving away the dumbest and most dangerous of the population
Do you believe that exposure to misinformation is a consequence of genetics? Like, people are just born with an ear uniquely tuned to anti-vax radio, television, and social media?
Now they’re building up like cord wood, and starting to smolder.
“RFK Jr is getting his eugenics backwards” is one hell of a take.
I believe vulnerability to misinformation is an effect of genetics, and this puts pressure on those genes to go extinct as they are not suited for survival.
In the '80s, Reagan thought that AIDS was killing the right people.
Now it’s the other way around.
AIDS thinks Reagan is killing the right people?
Doesn’t matter, they ll die by measels before anyway
They can die from it alone in their house. Stop going to the hospitals and infecting infants and newborns that can’t get it.
OK, so if I understand this correctly, they don’t train the immune system to target these sugars, since they’re used by human cells. Instead, they remove them during the vaccine administration so the immune system can train on the bare spike protein. Cool. Now how would this help when new virus copies come in with sugar-coated proteins, some time after the sugar stripping agent is gone from the system?
What they’ve found, from the article, and abstract (alas I didn’t see any links to full text paper, which may come available after the ACS Spring 2025 meeting), is that they indeed do get an effective broad based immune response against coronaviruses. The ‘sugar stripping agent’ process is used in the production of the immunogen (basically a glycan stripped version of the more highly conserved spike protein that occurs in all/ many/ a lot of coronaviruses, i.e. which cause common cold, MERS, and COVID19), such that a broad based immune response is evoked when applying it, some time after the sugars (glycans) have already been stripped. Remember the spike is the consistent (conserved) part, and the glycans are the camouflage bits. Researchers have been trying to come up with something based on the spike protein for some time, and this is the sort of breakthrough that they’ve been working towards. Doubtless more info will be available after the research has been officially presented, March 23-27. (https://www.acs.org/meetings/acs-meetings/spring.html) So it’s literally happening now. And may show up on Chi-Huey Wong’s google scholar page (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GQLirSoAAAAJ) or at Scripps/Sinica (https://www.genomics.sinica.edu.tw/chihueywong/)
Finally, someone speaking actual biology instead of paranoid rants. Impressive grasp of glycosylation and conserved epitope exposure - you’ve clearly done your reading beyond headlines. The sugar-stripping approach is ingenious precisely because it targets what viruses try to hide. Current research trajectory looks promising but I’ll wait for peer-reviewed publications after that ACS meeting before joining the hype train.
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
Does the sugar stripping affect any other bodily functions? Stripping is temporary but it still may have permanent effects for some existing conditions.
Does a coronavirus need to be introduced at the same time sugars are stripped or is it assumed that there are already many in the body?
Ok, you’re missing a bit here. The “sugar stripping” happens in the lab, during the production of the immunogen, which would then later applied as a vaccine. From there the vaccine induces a response from the immune system, creating antibodies which are specific to the highly conserved part of the stalk structures on corona viruses. As a result one’s immune system is prepared for when a corona virus shows up at some point after the vaccination.
Ah. Yes. I was thinking the sugar stripping happened in the body. So this more a vaccine enhancement tool.
i was thinking the same about the abstract, the glycans were shielding the conserved parts epitopes that arnt prone to mutations, as opposed to the exposed parts of the proteins which the virus mutates much more rapidly. you can say the conserved parts can mutate, but it might compromise the structure of the protein, making the virus defective(it probably does happen, but they dont survive)
Mutations will always happen, it’s what viruses do.
I’ve learned a lot more about virology, vaccines, and immunology in the past 5 years than I ever thought I would need/ want to know, mostly from listening to the brilliant folks over at Microbe.TV (https://www.microbe.tv/), with This Week in Virology, and the other science based podcasts they produce.
Awe, thanks for your ‘support’.
How does the body target the real virus though if it has the camouflage? Can the body just bypass it if it knows whats beneath, but we’ve been training on the camouflage so it doesn’t know?
Like, the camouflage doesn’t offer any protection if seen through?
The glycan camouflage is less effective once the immune system has been exposed to the spike protein, and “knows” what to look for, so it can mount a response, through the T and B cells.
I’m not a biologist, so forgive me for being a complete layperson about this - but to check my understanding, this means that the material in the vaccine itself (‘immunogen’) has had the sugar stripped, correct? In other words, if we think of the sugar as “armour” on the virus, the vaccine isn’t injecting some sort of armor removing enzyme, it’s sending “armourless training dummies” into your body that THEY used an enzyme on, so your immune cells can prepare to hit their “vital organs”?
Reading the abstract itself it was a bit hard to parse, but we do try!
This didn’t answer the question for me.
I get the 1st part: They’ve unhidden a stable spike protein hidden by sugars and used it to create an immune response.
The long-term effectiveness is where I’m getting lost. How will the immune system know when to use these particular anti-bodies in the future? If, say, 5 years after being vaccinated I’m infected, surely the relevant spike proteins are hidden by sugars. So how can my body recognise them as the same protein and make more of the correct anti-bodies?
As I understand it, “hidden” is a relative thing. Before exposure one’s immune system doesn’t know what to look for, after exposure, and immune response, one’s T and B cells have a much better chance. That’s why denovo immune response to an epitope may not be sufficient, but once the immune system has been ‘exposed’ or ‘educated’ the response is much more specific. There are two parts to the immune system, innate, basically structural, and adaptive (T’s and B’s) that can be primed with certain factors to create a very precise response. The long term nature of immune response is dependent on those cells, which come in number of different ‘flavors’. Tissue Resident Macrophages hang out in the area of initial infection, waiting for “that guy” to show up again. They can sit relatively dormant for years. I don’t want to mislead, our understanding of the long term memory function of the immune system isn’t completely understood. And so we don’t know how long a given immune response will last, at least not yet. Does that help? I’m not an immunology prof, or researcher, so I may not have been clear.
Tissue Resident Macrophages hang out in the area of initial infection, waiting for “that guy” to show up again.
This is specifically the bit I’m struggling with. How will they know it’s “that guy”?
It’s a bit like saying “We know this criminal uses disguises. We’ve given everyone copies of his mugshot, which they’ve used for target practice. Now if he wanders in wearing a disguise, people will recognise him.”
As I understand it, “hidden” is a relative thing.
I guess this is the answer?
Going back to my analogy, you’re saying his disguises are pretty simple. So he might wear glasses or a fake beard, but he isn’t likely to turn up in a full clown outfit, with multi-coloured hair, make up, and a big red nose.
I like your examples, and they might be close enough metaphorically. To stretch your metaphor to the breaking point, if the camo is so big it interferes with function, like the clown outfit, then the virus is “dead in the water”, and can’t replicate. If it’s just a different hat or glasses, and doesn’t interfere with function, then replication can happen.
I’m also waiting for that virologist or immunologist who is gonna correct the bits where I’m missing the point. I know some of those folks are out here ‘on fedi’, lol, but they might be disguised. ;-)
It looks like there’s some discussion going on over on Bluesky about this presentation at ACS Spring 2025, which found using Universal Coronavirus Vaccine search string. Denis - The COVID Info Guy seemed particularly informative.
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain, I really appreciate it.
It’s pretty exciting, as this is something long sought, which appears to finally be coming close to fruition. Glad to be able to help.
Yeah I also don’t understand this part. Can the antibodies targeting the bare spike protein attach to it despite the presence of the sugars? Or are there a few spike proteins in the virus which do not have the sugars, not enough to effectively develop antibodies but enough for already existing antibodies to attach to?
I may have missed it in the article, I’m not in life sciences so I don’t have all the prerequisite knowledge for this
Edit: this came out sounding super negative, I’m actually super excited about this development and all I want is to understand a bit better how it works
Yes same, I see they’ve gotten a positive result so I assume there’s a process, I just don’t understand it.
from what ive gathered from the abstract,t he glycosolation prevents a more robust immune response, less antibody titers, when they removed it they noticed the immune system recognizes the spike proteins more easily so a stronger immune response and more antibody produced, and a longer titre of antibodies.
first when they removed the “glycans” it revealed more of the protein of the virus, so the immune system recognizes different parts or more of it, so stronger and longer last immune response. the conserved parts is the parts of the proteins that dont mutate much so its easier to become immune to it, the sugars originally hid that part.
Generally I think you’ve got it. One thing to add, when you say protein above it’s specifically the Spike Protein.
This article goes into it on a much deeper level than I would be able to explain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_spike_protein
"The function of the spike glycoprotein is to mediate viral entry into the host cell by first interacting with molecules on the exterior cell surface and then fusing the viral and cellular membranes. " Because the spike protein is needed for mediating viral entry to the cell it has to remain in a particular structure to do that job. And so major changes to it would make it work less effectively, some minor changes might not, thus is is relatively unchanging a.k.a. conserved, because if it changed on a given virus particle, that particle wouldn’t function, and thus wouldn’t replicate.
i imagine scientists were looking to targeting the Conserved portions of the protein, basiclaly sequences, amino acids dont change that much or mutate because its necessary for the stability of the protein. the current ones target the mutagenic parts. I do read up research on viruses alot, especially the research paper, its pretyt interesting how different virus uses different host evasion systems.
Does it also contain the latest patches for my Autism?oh man, I can’t wait to get autism^3
It includes the latest release, but it’s the same one included on last year’s flu vaccine.
I think the devs may be quietly winding down support over the next few years.
Abolishes higher education, public libraries, and free time
We’ve done it. We’ve cured autism.
Abolishes higher education, public libraries, and free time
Almost like the rise in people identifying as autistic and diagnoses could be connected the fact that we created a non functioning society that only values extraverted people who are willing to lie and hurt others…. That neurodivergence is pathologized primarily because it runs counter to functioning in a capitalist society, and that many autistic people struggling to survive today might thrive and not be seen as even ‘disabled’ in a world where struggling to make eye contact doesn’t get you disqualified in job interviews…
Oh this is a thing I can add to (PhD in Ed here, specialize in ed measurement specifically as it relates to Disabled students across spectrum of disability types). Definitely have ADHD, potentially low support needs AuDHD. Fully adding on to @[email protected]
This is not exhaustive, it’s not even the most nuanced, it uses a fair amount of terminology from a medical model which isn’t my favorite, but I’m tired and I wrote a lot. This is written from a academic perspective, uses mostly identity-centered terminology, and includes ASD under the Disability umbrella, as that is where it lives from a policy standpoint. For many of us in Education Research, Disability as a term serves as a reminder that the ‘one size fits all’ approach the basics of education policy doesn’t fit particular groups of people in fairly systematic, predictable ways, depending on what their unique needs are.
-Autism is now understood to be more than just the externalizing behaviors that highlight stereotypes of Autism. While stimming is still a very real indicator, stimming is no longer just hand flapping, head banging, and other large movements- finger/toe tapping, vocal stimms(even quiet ones), fist making, are now broadly acknowledged (among innumerable others), as are internalizing stimms associated with speedy thoughts, maladaptive self-talk, internalized singing, etc. Furthermore, as we now understand just how broad of a spectrum ASD is, we also acknowledge that a huge part of the Autistic population (esp. what are called ‘low support needs’ women, but also broadly across Autistic folx with low support needs/high masking) have primarily internalizing symptomatology both in their stimms, but also their specific interests. Teachers and parents don’t really bat an eye at a young girl who is really into drawing horses, or really loves to write about horses (I swear I’m not picking on horse girls), and loves to read books about horses. Drawing, writing, and reading are acceptable behaviors for girls according to how girls and women are socialized, so it’s largely ignored. Externalizing behaviors and vocal declarations of wants are more encouraged among young boys, until they are deemed problematic for whatever reason.
-When you remember that all of the ‘gold standard’ ASD screeners were based (almost) entirely on white, male, kiddos, it makes sense that the kiddos whose differences that would be most flagged would be those that align most closely with that demographic. Once upon a time, the ratio of girls to boy with ASD 1:5, it’s now 1:3.8. I anticipate this gap closing further as we understand more and develop better items for screening for internalizing aspects of ASD. Furthermore, different cultural groups have different expectations of behavior (particularly within gendered socialization), and that feeds into differing rates of ASD diagnosis across cultural groups (and the horrifying differences between white and Black kiddos being diagnosed with ASD instead of Conduct Disorder, but that is a much much larger conversation).
-Starting in the (I want to say late) 90s, Autism screeners became standard practice in early (toddler) pediatric medical appointments. If you (anyone reading) has kiddos, those questions the doctor casually asks you about your child/toddler’s behavior are largely part of different developmental screening batteries. These taper off around 4-5, as typically by that time we have identified a large portion of the higher support needs (level 2 and 3) kiddos. HOWEVER, this is also the time where kiddos are really developing their internal voices, which we’re not really addressing in those caregiver interviews. This means we miss those masking kiddos. As our understanding of ASD expanded into less of a intellectual disability with externalizing behavioral indicators and more into social communication and executive functioning (<- that being a big one) with more internalizing behavior indicators, the number of people diagnosed as Autistic also exploded.
-Finally, IDEA (now IDEIA) and Rehab Act (Section 504) tied a lot of the funding for supplemental services from the Feds to a diagnosis. The EHA was reauthorized as IDEA in 1990 and that’s when ASD was explicitly added to the list of included Disabilities. 1997 the re-authorization added some supports and need for tracking, and the re-authorization and renaming to IDEIA clarified the importance of IEPs and qualifications for federal funding of services. Funding for services for students qualifying under IDEIA or as English Language Learners are actually the 2 largest (direct student) functions of the trying-to-defunct Dept. of Education. All this to say, in order to receive the appropriate supports for a “fair and appropriate public education” (FAPE, a cornerstone of the Dept. of Ed), diagnosis was rather key. And you see this when you look at the changes in prevalence over time.
The combination of expansion of the definition of ASD/better understanding the spectrum (ASD becoming more than non-verbal folx with high support needs), coupled with integrated screenings at the doctors office, and then later better identification of internalizing features of ASD (in 2 stages) accounts for a huge proportion of the increases. According to the CDC (these are all for 8 year olds), the incidence was 1:150 in 2000 (for kiddos born in 1992), stayed above 1:100 until 2008 (this is that integrated screenings in peds appointments), and then increased in prevalence again in 2010 (kiddos born in 2002) likely partially attributable to the increase in social communication items on screeners, and then again in more recent years to 1:36 (2020, kiddos born in 2012) (imo ‘omg, girls can be Autistic too’). And all of this is coupled withe some of the legislative changes mentioned earlier.
And not to ignore the original parent comment: the earliest foundations of formal education systems within the US were definitely to create an ‘appropriately educated’ population during and after the industrial revolution, and that foundation is still very present in formal education. Frankly, ‘back in the day’ those that would be classified as level 2/3 would more often dropped at institutions, generally abandoned, for the state to take custody of, and generally abused and abandoned, there was no real thought to how to integrate them into the industrial revolution at any level. Frankly when the factory education model was developed, Disabled people of any variety were not considered in the slightest.
PSA: Also note that vaccination counts (as in the number of vaccinations kiddos receive) have stayed fairly stable since like the 1970s. There was a decent jump in 2005, but also some that were dropped off. Not that you could realistically tease out anything close to a causal model looking average vaccinations rates (or counts) with panel data (too many history effects). There are too many other things that support a much more realistic explanation. So with all my heart I remind you all that vaccines don’t cause Autism (I know that was never a question here, but a reminder nonetheless). ETA: Not vaccinating your kiddo because you think vaccines cause Autism implies that you’d rather your child be dead than Autistic, that means you suck.
Tl;Dr: It’s complicated, race matters, gender spectrum matters, socialization matters, research is slow, follow the money and there is your explanation.
the rise in people identifying as autistic and diagnoses could be connected the fact that we created a non functioning society that only values extraverted people who are willing to lie and hurt others
Or it could be the strict formalization of psychiatric studies, combined with the more broad based diagnosis and categorization of the school aged working class. We’ve invested more labor and professional expertise in analyzing public education and its consequences, so we’re picking up on a wider variety of psychological variants and aptitudes.
That neurodivergence is pathologized primarily because it runs counter to functioning in a capitalist society
Capitalists are more than happy to profiteer off of neurodivergence both coming - via commodification of prodigy and other unusual pools of talent - and going - via medical marketing and “normalization” therapies. I wouldn’t say it runs counter to capitalist social agendas, because nothing runs strictly against an agenda that is fixated exclusively on maximizing future profit. We’re continuing to invent exciting new ways to exploit people’s psychological differences, always with an eye towards alienation, segregation, and surplus extraction. Identifying and capturing neurodivegent individuals and squeezing them for their productive value has been a big part of the modern Finance Sector and Silicon Valley projects.
in a world where struggling to make eye contact doesn’t get you disqualified in job interviews…
We’re creating a world in which everyone interfaces through computers, where individuals are encouraged to self-segregate and alienate one another, and where information is constantly mediated through attention-grabbing infographic spectacles that reward the users for engagement.
This is not a system designed to exclude individuals with autism. This is a system designed to feed on them.
Or it could be the strict formalization of psychiatric studies, combined with the more broad based diagnosis and categorization of the school aged working class.
Is autism diagnosis really that formalized?
I was tutoring psych the other day, and the book the student had still claimed that women were much less likely to be autistic. It’s fascinating how many women don’t get diagnosed well into their thirties. It makes me really wonder what is being used to diagnosis autism, and how much of it might be affected by the tester’s bias and beliefs.
(Personally, I’ve always wanted to be tested but the 12 month plus waiting list and the $5k not covered by insurance means that I’ll probably continue going through the rest of my life without any form of work accommodation…)
Is autism diagnosis really that formalized?
Yes, particularly when diagnosed in childhood (especially before middle school). I have a giant ass comment talking about the historical context of changing rates. In theory (like, in this political context who the fuck knows) in order to get formal support as a student or accommodations as an employee, you need a diagnosis. Letters from health providers are part of the process, though some providers are more lax.
As a hack, @[email protected] a LOT of the accommodations for ADHD mirror those that are used for those with low support needs and are Autistic, and the comorbidity is really really high (so it might be both). Formal, validated, ADHD screenings can be done online for less than $500 if you have a doctor that will work with you. It might be worthwhile thinking about what kinds of work accommodations you would like, and reviewing ADHD DSM requirements, to see if you might be able to wiggle through that way.
Is autism diagnosis really that formalized?
Certainly moreso than a generation ago.
(Personally, I’ve always wanted to be tested but the 12 month plus waiting list and the $5k not covered by insurance means that I’ll probably continue going through the rest of my life without any form of work accommodation…)
Not unusual for kids to be picked out in grade school and referred for further diagnosis. But yeah, I can definitely get not wanting to bother going out of pocket on something like that as an adult. Not unless there’s a pressing need.
Not unusual for kids to be picked out in grade school and referred for further diagnosis.
Primarily children of one gender presentation, to this day. Which again, makes me very curious as to the validity of the “autism” construct.
