DIY Covid Vaccine
August 31, 2020 8:40 AM Subscribe
The white paper (pdf), for anyone looking to push their kitchen chemistry skills past sourdough-starter territory.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:07 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:07 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
“…it’s an amazingly surreal experience knowing that I may have an immunity to this constant danger [and] that my continued existence through this pandemic will be a useful data set. It lends a level of meaning and purpose.”this has the same energy as the youtube accounts uploading whole entire TV shows and putting “no copyright infringement intended” in the description
posted by sidesh0w at 9:08 AM on August 31, 2020 [59 favorites]
This is about as sane and responsible as claiming that surviving one round of Russian Roulette makes you bulletproof.
posted by mhoye at 9:10 AM on August 31, 2020 [25 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 9:10 AM on August 31, 2020 [25 favorites]
Estep believes taking the peptide vaccine, even if it’s unproven, is a legitimate way to reduce risk.
Belief is faith and faith is not science, it's religion.
posted by Zedcaster at 9:15 AM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
Belief is faith and faith is not science, it's religion.
posted by Zedcaster at 9:15 AM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm really disappointed in George Church, who should know better.
posted by lalochezia at 9:17 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 9:17 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?
I am not sure if I would take it if offered to me. I have been to 150+ Grateful Dead shows. Trust me when I say I have ingested unknown chemicals from unknown people into my body. Sometimes in unusual combinations. (Protip: Qualuudes and acid are generally not a good combination.)
While I do not see any clear indication that this is effective, I do not see the downside. Estep says it has not changed his behavior although it has changed his mindset. He believes it reduces risk. His risk. If people who take this continue to wear a mask and social distance, good luck to them.
My concern is that they give it to others who do change their behavior thinking it is a working vaccine which it may well be, but which we will not know.
posted by AugustWest at 9:18 AM on August 31, 2020 [9 favorites]
I am not sure if I would take it if offered to me. I have been to 150+ Grateful Dead shows. Trust me when I say I have ingested unknown chemicals from unknown people into my body. Sometimes in unusual combinations. (Protip: Qualuudes and acid are generally not a good combination.)
While I do not see any clear indication that this is effective, I do not see the downside. Estep says it has not changed his behavior although it has changed his mindset. He believes it reduces risk. His risk. If people who take this continue to wear a mask and social distance, good luck to them.
My concern is that they give it to others who do change their behavior thinking it is a working vaccine which it may well be, but which we will not know.
posted by AugustWest at 9:18 AM on August 31, 2020 [9 favorites]
While this is strictly speaking a DIY vaccine, it's being done by people who are professionals, or at least know what they're doing. That's a little different from saying that this is something 'ordinary' people can do, which is probably where the real danger comes in.
Given the very nature of a DIY solution, can the results be verified or published? Can the results even be used to push forward another 'legit' vaccine? I'd expect not. As such, this becomes only a partial solution for a small set of informed people (and good for them, I suppose). The larger solution we all need won't start with this mix.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:19 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Given the very nature of a DIY solution, can the results be verified or published? Can the results even be used to push forward another 'legit' vaccine? I'd expect not. As such, this becomes only a partial solution for a small set of informed people (and good for them, I suppose). The larger solution we all need won't start with this mix.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:19 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
The risk I see is that it could give people unrealistic expectations for vaccine studies. Why fund real research if you can just do this? It devalues the real work that's being done on viable vaccine candidates.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:21 AM on August 31, 2020 [31 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 9:21 AM on August 31, 2020 [31 favorites]
It also is just begging for some charlatan to produce a knockoff version that definitely doesn't work and sell it on Facebook. "Endorsed by George Church, based on MIT technology they don't want you to use! Bill Gates wants you to take his sterilizing/tracking/5G vaccine, when he knows that a cheap, effective vaccine already exists, and you can make it yourself!"
posted by BungaDunga at 9:25 AM on August 31, 2020 [37 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 9:25 AM on August 31, 2020 [37 favorites]
I'm really disappointed in George Church, who should know better.
He does not.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:30 AM on August 31, 2020 [31 favorites]
He does not.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:30 AM on August 31, 2020 [31 favorites]
*Taps forehead* Can't be operating an unsanctioned clinical trial if you're not even tracking how many people are taking the drug.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:40 AM on August 31, 2020 [39 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:40 AM on August 31, 2020 [39 favorites]
Some crucial pull-quoting, possibly all one needs to read:
George Siber, the former head of vaccines at Wyeth, says he told Estep that short, simple peptides often don’t lead to much of an immune response. Moreover, Siber says, he doesn’t know of any subunit vaccine delivered nasally, and he questions whether it would be potent enough to have any effect.posted by advil at 9:41 AM on August 31, 2020 [25 favorites]
When Estep reached out to him earlier this year, Siber also wanted to know if the team had considered a dangerous side effect, called enhancement, in which a vaccine can actually worsen the disease. “It’s not the best idea—especially in this case, you could make things worse,” Siber says of the effort. “You really need to know what you are doing here.”
He isn’t the only skeptic. Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Medical Center, who saw the white paper, pans Radvac as “off-the-charts loony.” In an email, Caplan says he sees “no leeway” for self-experimentation given the importance of quality control with vaccines. Instead, he thinks there is a high “potential for harm” and “ill-founded enthusiasm.”
Radvac is an anagram of Cadavr
posted by ardgedee at 9:55 AM on August 31, 2020 [32 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 9:55 AM on August 31, 2020 [32 favorites]
I can't find whether Church is a singularity wacko, but he's not averse to appearing at Singularity U. events.
While this is strictly speaking a DIY vaccine, it's being done by people who are professionals, or at least know what they're doing
Not really. I would characterize Estep and Church as technologists more than therapeutic developers. They have done great basic molecular biology work but that's a very different skillset than a trained immunologist or vaccine expert.
posted by benzenedream at 10:14 AM on August 31, 2020 [16 favorites]
While this is strictly speaking a DIY vaccine, it's being done by people who are professionals, or at least know what they're doing
Not really. I would characterize Estep and Church as technologists more than therapeutic developers. They have done great basic molecular biology work but that's a very different skillset than a trained immunologist or vaccine expert.
posted by benzenedream at 10:14 AM on August 31, 2020 [16 favorites]
The group, calling itself the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative, or Radvac, formed in March. That’s when Estep sent an email to a circle of acquaintances, noting that US government experts were predicting a vaccine in 12 to 18 months and wondering if a do-it-yourself project could move faster. He believed there was “already sufficient information” published about the virus to guide an independent project.
So, Harvard has already pulled this idiot's tenure, right?
posted by Mayor West at 10:23 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
So, Harvard has already pulled this idiot's tenure, right?
posted by Mayor West at 10:23 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Church wants to engineer longevity, so he'd be at least moderately at home with the singularity types. Peter Thiel helped fun his wooly mammoth resurrection project.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:27 AM on August 31, 2020
posted by BungaDunga at 10:27 AM on August 31, 2020
Great typo there, BungaDunga. Possibly typomancy.
posted by clew at 10:30 AM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by clew at 10:30 AM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
So, Harvard has already pulled this idiot's tenure, right?
Surely this is exactly what tenure is for: mad scientists. Or is there a loophole for endangering human lives by circumventing IRBs?
posted by Countess Elena at 10:42 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Surely this is exactly what tenure is for: mad scientists. Or is there a loophole for endangering human lives by circumventing IRBs?
posted by Countess Elena at 10:42 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
Church wants to engineer longevity, so he'd be at least moderately at home with the singularity types. Peter Thiel helped fun his wooly mammoth resurrection project.
I cannot fathom the notion that immortality is desirable. That some people who are trying to engineer it have some traits in common with vampires seems so on the nose.
posted by treepour at 10:50 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
I cannot fathom the notion that immortality is desirable. That some people who are trying to engineer it have some traits in common with vampires seems so on the nose.
posted by treepour at 10:50 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
To paraphrase Macklemore, this is fucking nuts.
posted by notsnot at 10:59 AM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by notsnot at 10:59 AM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
Talk about eating your own dog food...
posted by jim in austin at 11:12 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 11:12 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
the thing with psuedo-ethical "studies" is that the same people willing to eschew ethics are also the same people you cannot trust to actually run a study in a reliable manner, so you end up with a totally unethical "study" and no scientific results
anyway the hard part of vaccines has never been the actual manufacture, people know how to do that well and at scale. the hard part is knowing whether it works and doesn't hurt people. Even if this method works, nobody will ever be able to know for sure.
if these biohackers want to work on something, they could work on cheap mass testing. that's easier to prove works and is more of a straight engineering/microbiology problem than vaccines. But that would be boring, so they're huffing peptides or whatever and claiming that it's for the benefit of mankind.
(everyone involved in this is a man, am I reading it right? because a bunch of men egging each other on to ingest something suspicious is not unknown. just saying.)
posted by BungaDunga at 11:15 AM on August 31, 2020 [49 favorites]
anyway the hard part of vaccines has never been the actual manufacture, people know how to do that well and at scale. the hard part is knowing whether it works and doesn't hurt people. Even if this method works, nobody will ever be able to know for sure.
if these biohackers want to work on something, they could work on cheap mass testing. that's easier to prove works and is more of a straight engineering/microbiology problem than vaccines. But that would be boring, so they're huffing peptides or whatever and claiming that it's for the benefit of mankind.
(everyone involved in this is a man, am I reading it right? because a bunch of men egging each other on to ingest something suspicious is not unknown. just saying.)
posted by BungaDunga at 11:15 AM on August 31, 2020 [49 favorites]
Who knows whether he even took the vaccine?
His Thiel connection makes me wonder whether this is really about making people think the virus is on the verge of being controlled in order to help Trump.
posted by jamjam at 11:20 AM on August 31, 2020 [10 favorites]
His Thiel connection makes me wonder whether this is really about making people think the virus is on the verge of being controlled in order to help Trump.
posted by jamjam at 11:20 AM on August 31, 2020 [10 favorites]
oh and another thing: even if a vaccine prevents you getting sick, it may well not prevent you from getting infected. So inoculating a few people does almost no good: they won't get sick, sure, but they may still be able to spread the disease to other people. Assuming their thing works, it may be that all they're creating is a few dozen typhoid marys who will be a much greater risk of asymptomatically spreading it
this is why you need to vaccinate everyone, and the only way to do that is to convince everyone that it's safe, and the only way to do that is to run a massive vaccine trial. That's it. That's what has to be done. Anything else is not actually aimed at the problem, and therefore has no hope of fixing the problem.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:27 AM on August 31, 2020 [15 favorites]
this is why you need to vaccinate everyone, and the only way to do that is to convince everyone that it's safe, and the only way to do that is to run a massive vaccine trial. That's it. That's what has to be done. Anything else is not actually aimed at the problem, and therefore has no hope of fixing the problem.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:27 AM on August 31, 2020 [15 favorites]
While this is strictly speaking a DIY vaccine, it's being done by people who are professionals, or at least know what they're doing.
I'm not convinced that these people do know what they're doing. Most of the people involved in this project appear to be geneticists, and I don't see how that training confers any skill in making vaccines. Estep even admits their lack of experience ("We established a core group, most of them [from] my go-to posse for citizen science, though we have never done anything quite like this"). So they could be on to something, or they could all just be suffering from the inflated self-confidence common among scientists looking at an adjacent or related field and declaring its problems to be easy.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:37 AM on August 31, 2020 [17 favorites]
I'm not convinced that these people do know what they're doing. Most of the people involved in this project appear to be geneticists, and I don't see how that training confers any skill in making vaccines. Estep even admits their lack of experience ("We established a core group, most of them [from] my go-to posse for citizen science, though we have never done anything quite like this"). So they could be on to something, or they could all just be suffering from the inflated self-confidence common among scientists looking at an adjacent or related field and declaring its problems to be easy.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:37 AM on August 31, 2020 [17 favorites]
I asked Hoekstra if I could join the group and get the vaccine too. “Consider the invitation open,” he said.Self-experimentation to try to get pilot data and speed development is one thing. I'm not sure I think it's really a good idea, but yeah, I agree with the argument that an expert who (supposedly) fully understands what they're doing has a right to do whatever they like to their own body. But when you're persuading non-experts who necessarily don't have that same level of understanding that it's a risk worth taking, and creating sophistical arguments that they're assuming the risk themselves because they're mixing up the ingredients or whatever, you are engaged in unregulated human experimentation. All of these people should be fired and banned from receiving public research money ever again.
posted by biogeo at 11:40 AM on August 31, 2020 [15 favorites]
I know Pete Estep and none of this surprises me.
posted by Glomar response at 11:46 AM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Glomar response at 11:46 AM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
>What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?
What doesn't kill you only hasn't killed you yet.
posted by Catblack at 11:58 AM on August 31, 2020 [38 favorites]
What doesn't kill you only hasn't killed you yet.
posted by Catblack at 11:58 AM on August 31, 2020 [38 favorites]
That which does not kill you
will most likely try again tomorrow.
posted by davelog at 12:03 PM on August 31, 2020 [16 favorites]
will most likely try again tomorrow.
posted by davelog at 12:03 PM on August 31, 2020 [16 favorites]
“The late twentieth century, and the early years of our own millennium, form, in retrospect, a single era. This was the Age of the Normal Accident, in which people cheerfully accepted technological risks that today would seem quite insane.” -Bruce Sterling, ‘Our Neural Chernobyl’
posted by Glomar response at 12:13 PM on August 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by Glomar response at 12:13 PM on August 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
Everything about this, including the reporting, is downright irresponsible. They should not be doing this, and no one should give these people air time. This whole thing is dangerous and foolish.
posted by k8lin at 12:22 PM on August 31, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by k8lin at 12:22 PM on August 31, 2020 [9 favorites]
Subunit vaccines are generally safe, but giving this out without safety studies — or making it without contamination protocols and distributing homemade lab product — nevermind that there's no double-blind test or placebo to measure efficacy (i.e., there's no real science being done here), that's just stupid and dangerous. This is snake oil peddling, not science.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:30 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:30 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
You can't 'DIY' a vaccine, since vaccines are premised on collective action, not individual action. It s a "Do It Everyone" technology.
posted by eustatic at 12:34 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 12:34 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?
What doesn't kill you is just busy killing someone else at the moment.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:57 PM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
What doesn't kill you is just busy killing someone else at the moment.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:57 PM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
The acronym needs a little work, eustatic.
posted by clew at 1:01 PM on August 31, 2020 [40 favorites]
posted by clew at 1:01 PM on August 31, 2020 [40 favorites]
I cannot fathom the notion that immortality is desirable.
We must all complete.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:05 PM on August 31, 2020
We must all complete.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:05 PM on August 31, 2020
Seems harmless and once that peptide becomes monitored/regulated/hard to get, will probably be economically unfeasible.
posted by geoff. at 1:07 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by geoff. at 1:07 PM on August 31, 2020
MetaFilter: huffing peptides or whatever
posted by axiom at 1:07 PM on August 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by axiom at 1:07 PM on August 31, 2020 [8 favorites]
everyone involved in this is a man, am I reading it right?
Yeah, I also noticed that every single identified person quoted in this article was male.
It's probably safer that mainlining bleach. *shrug*
posted by heatherlogan at 1:49 PM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I also noticed that every single identified person quoted in this article was male.
It's probably safer that mainlining bleach. *shrug*
posted by heatherlogan at 1:49 PM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure I think it's really a good idea, but yeah, I agree with the argument that an expert who (supposedly) fully understands what they're doing has a right to do whatever they like to their own body.
This is de jure false. See, for example, helmet laws and drug laws. It may even be de facto false because we live in a society, which will feel obligated to dedicate resources to cleaning up the mess.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:04 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
This is de jure false. See, for example, helmet laws and drug laws. It may even be de facto false because we live in a society, which will feel obligated to dedicate resources to cleaning up the mess.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:04 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
The idea of self-study is often presented as a noble form of individual sacrifice, but one of the many things that COVID has driven home is how interconnected we are. They may be working with relatively low-risk substances, but if shit goes south for some reason and one of the self-experimenters needs emergency medical attention, a whole mess of resources and dozens of people are suddenly going to be involved and impacted. It's a little like people who declare that they don't need masks because they're willing to bear the consequences, ignoring the fact that their actions have consequences for other people.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:09 PM on August 31, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:09 PM on August 31, 2020 [13 favorites]
On preview: what heatherlogan said
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:09 PM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:09 PM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
The thing about "it's your body" when it comes to dealing with things like viruses is that they don't stay in just your body.
And if taking your homegrown "vaccine" makes you go around without a mask or not socially distance because you're "safe" when you are actually just asymptomatic, then you are just another disease vector, bucko.
posted by emjaybee at 2:12 PM on August 31, 2020 [10 favorites]
And if taking your homegrown "vaccine" makes you go around without a mask or not socially distance because you're "safe" when you are actually just asymptomatic, then you are just another disease vector, bucko.
posted by emjaybee at 2:12 PM on August 31, 2020 [10 favorites]
Arguments against bodily autonomy get used for a lot of stuff that is not so great (laws against abortion or compassionate euthanasia, for instance), so it can be a complicated subject that has to be tread lightly, as far as who decides what level of autonomy is acceptable and why. Nonetheless, I have no doubt these are intelligent people involved, but I seriously question their wisdom and ethical standards. As far as this kind of project goes, IRBs and other processes exist to manage vaccine and challenge studies and make sure there are safeguards in place, and that's really the kind of route that should have been taken, if the goal was to do legitimate scientific research.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:21 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:21 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Estep believes Radvac is not subject to oversight because the group’s members mix up and administer the vaccine themselves, and no money changes hands. “If you are just making it and taking it yourself, the FDA can’t stop you,” says Estep. The FDA did not immediately respond to questions about the legality of the vaccine.So we in the pharma industry do not generally charge patients for trials, or make any claims, and yet we file an IND showing the reasons we believe something is safe and potentially effective before we go in humans. So no, the FDA cares about stuff long before it make money.
[ . . . ]
“What the FDA really wants to crack down on is anything big, which makes claims, or makes money. And this is none of those,” says Church. “As soon as we do any of those things, they would justifiably crack down. Also, things that get attention. But we haven’t had any so far.”
And they didn't even get IRB approval?
Given the low probability of the approach being successful, and a setup that is not designed to collect good data, I don't have a lot of respect for the people doing this (at least the institutionally connected ones who should know better.)
Seems harmless and once that peptide becomes monitored/regulated/hard to get, will probably be economically unfeasible.
The peptides would be custom made, I assume, so it's not like you'll run out.
posted by mark k at 2:25 PM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
Genetics training means shit-all when it comes to immunology. Actually, I would go so far as to say most non-immunology scientific training means shit-all when it comes to immunology. Immunology is a field unto itself and you cannot half-ass your way through it the way a microbiologist might go through biochemistry and vice-versa. If you don't think immunology is horrendously complicated it is because you do not understand enough about immunology. This guy knows that the general public reads "Harvard geneticist" and thinks he's good and smart enough to fartle around without formal training, and he's exploiting that. It's really gross.
posted by Anonymous at 2:50 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by Anonymous at 2:50 PM on August 31, 2020
Seems harmless
Harm is not just literal material harm to bodies. Harm also occurs when scientists actively work to erode public trust in vaccines, which are already something the public is iffy about in the United States. And this absolutely erodes public trust, because it makes it seem like the regulatory procedures in place are some kind of annoyance that a clever person can circumvent. As if those regulatory procedures aren't, you know, for human safety. People are drinking bleach over this virus, y'all. These men should not be adding to the confusion about vaccines and their proper development. They know better.
posted by k8lin at 4:33 PM on August 31, 2020 [11 favorites]
Harm is not just literal material harm to bodies. Harm also occurs when scientists actively work to erode public trust in vaccines, which are already something the public is iffy about in the United States. And this absolutely erodes public trust, because it makes it seem like the regulatory procedures in place are some kind of annoyance that a clever person can circumvent. As if those regulatory procedures aren't, you know, for human safety. People are drinking bleach over this virus, y'all. These men should not be adding to the confusion about vaccines and their proper development. They know better.
posted by k8lin at 4:33 PM on August 31, 2020 [11 favorites]
And when it comes to bodily harm, there's an outside chance that it causes antibody dependent enhancement and instead of protecting, it makes COVID worse. ADE has been seen in coronaviruses before.
I don't know what the chances of it are, but they're not zero. This concoction is totally untested.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:46 PM on August 31, 2020
I don't know what the chances of it are, but they're not zero. This concoction is totally untested.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:46 PM on August 31, 2020
Actually, I would go so far as to say most non-immunology scientific training means shit-all when it comes to immunology.
Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
Which is too bad because we really need to understand how the immune system reacts to the coronavirus.
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:11 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
Which is too bad because we really need to understand how the immune system reacts to the coronavirus.
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:11 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
Sorry I failed and copy-paste there.
Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:43 PM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:43 PM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
With stupid people injecting themselves with bleach on the President's mis-advice, this reporting by the Tech Review is irresponsible, at best. Snake oil doesn't properly cover this scenario, as those concocting this believe in it, and are likely more versed in the shortcomings of this approach than most of us here are. Snake oil refers to sleezey salesmen skipping town before it turns out their product doesn't actually work, but George Church is a bit of a known quantity as linked up-thread. If these people truly aren't going to change their behavior, then there's less to pillory them for. Except of course they will, because you can't put this much effort into something and then ignore the fact that you did.
However, medical science is far fuzzier a field than anybody likes, and is often just an echo chamber of "accepted views" and condescension, which has made self-experimentation a critical tool in a researcher's toolbox. It only serves the echos in the chamber to ignore Jonas Salk's initial test of the polio vaccine on himself, or Barry Marshall giving himself an ulcer in order to cure it, just to prove H. pylori bacteria causes ulcers. (Nor can we ignore the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, or Edward Jenner's initial testing of the smallpox vaccine.)
One of the top medical centers, held a meeting in the early days of the pandemic, gathering one hundred leadership, top researchers, and front-line essential workers together in-person to discuss this strange pneumonia. Less experienced members who objected gathering in-person in the face of an unknown, possibly airborne disease were shouted down. Unsurprisingly, several doctors/attendees got sick with COVID-19 after the meeting, and even if it's impossible to say whether they caught it specifically from that meeting, it should serve as a warning that none of us is a dumb as all of us.
posted by fragmede at 7:57 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
However, medical science is far fuzzier a field than anybody likes, and is often just an echo chamber of "accepted views" and condescension, which has made self-experimentation a critical tool in a researcher's toolbox. It only serves the echos in the chamber to ignore Jonas Salk's initial test of the polio vaccine on himself, or Barry Marshall giving himself an ulcer in order to cure it, just to prove H. pylori bacteria causes ulcers. (Nor can we ignore the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, or Edward Jenner's initial testing of the smallpox vaccine.)
One of the top medical centers, held a meeting in the early days of the pandemic, gathering one hundred leadership, top researchers, and front-line essential workers together in-person to discuss this strange pneumonia. Less experienced members who objected gathering in-person in the face of an unknown, possibly airborne disease were shouted down. Unsurprisingly, several doctors/attendees got sick with COVID-19 after the meeting, and even if it's impossible to say whether they caught it specifically from that meeting, it should serve as a warning that none of us is a dumb as all of us.
posted by fragmede at 7:57 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
"I injected a bunch of shit that someone sent me in the mail. So far so good!"
posted by bshort at 8:40 PM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by bshort at 8:40 PM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
There were samples in my mailbox, so I put them into my body
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:00 PM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:00 PM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
i told you i was hardcore
posted by glonous keming at 9:03 PM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 9:03 PM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
"I gave them to my neighbors first, just to make sure this shit was legit" (The Intercept)
posted by valkane at 10:02 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by valkane at 10:02 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
One of the top medical centers, held a meeting in the early days of the pandemic, gathering one hundred leadership, top researchers, and front-line essential workers together in-person to discuss this strange pneumonia.
Where/when exactly was this meeting? From very early on in Wuhan this was known to be a coronavirus related to SARS - this sounds unusually dumb even by my level of expected pessimism.
posted by benzenedream at 10:11 PM on August 31, 2020
Where/when exactly was this meeting? From very early on in Wuhan this was known to be a coronavirus related to SARS - this sounds unusually dumb even by my level of expected pessimism.
posted by benzenedream at 10:11 PM on August 31, 2020
While I do not see any clear indication that this is effective, I do not see the downside.
I read somewhere about 'Antibody Dependent Enhancement'. It is where you get a type of antibody that actually makes you even sicker than you would otherwise be when you are later exposed to the disease. It is apparently something they monitor for very carefully when doing vaccine studies.
So this is one possible downside: they could get exposed to the Coronavirus, their immune system could go crazy very quickly, and they could die.
posted by eye of newt at 12:08 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
I read somewhere about 'Antibody Dependent Enhancement'. It is where you get a type of antibody that actually makes you even sicker than you would otherwise be when you are later exposed to the disease. It is apparently something they monitor for very carefully when doing vaccine studies.
So this is one possible downside: they could get exposed to the Coronavirus, their immune system could go crazy very quickly, and they could die.
posted by eye of newt at 12:08 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
They're nuts.
On the other hand, as a thoroughgoing needlephobe I would absolutely love if when the mass vaccination programme comes to the UK we can have it by nasal spray!
posted by mathw at 3:36 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, as a thoroughgoing needlephobe I would absolutely love if when the mass vaccination programme comes to the UK we can have it by nasal spray!
posted by mathw at 3:36 AM on September 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Genetics training means shit-all when it comes to immunology. Actually, I would go so far as to say most non-immunology scientific training means shit-all when it comes to immunology. Immunology is a field unto itself and you cannot half-ass your way through it the way a microbiologist might go through biochemistry and vice-versa. If you don't think immunology is horrendously complicated it is because you do not understand enough about immunology. This guy knows that the general public reads "Harvard geneticist" and thinks he's good and smart enough to fartle around without formal training, and he's exploiting that. It's really gross.
Even most immunologists don't know much vaccinology. Historically they've been separate fields with vaccinology being essentially empirical, most of our greatest vaccine public health achievements took place with vaccines for which we didn't really understand the mechanism. We didn't know about B and T cells and even the basics of how they worked together until the late 1960s and we are still discovering new sub-types.
It wasn't until the early aughts, for instance, that people went back to already approved vaccines like vaccinia/smallpox to study the immune basis for how they worked. That's decades after we even *stopped* giving it, let alone when we started.
Until very recently, it was assumed that the response to Vaccinia was to produce large quantities of one neutralising antibody. Actually it turns out that the vaccine stimulates production of six or more type to different epitopes. We didn't know that until well after we had eradicated smallpox.
The current wave of new vaccine technologies, including the viral vectored Oxford vaccine and the mRNA Moderna vaccine are a product of this new approach to vaccinology.
Look, if these guys want to make random peptides, mix it with a chitosan adjuvant1 and insufflate it, that's their right. I think it's very unlikely to work because of the nature of mucosal immune response. The oral mucosa are a hostile environment that "expects" a certain amount of foreign protein and cannot simply generate a strong immune response to every peptide fragment snuffled up from the air. Otherwise our airways would be permanently inflamed. As far as I know, the only licensed inhaled vaccine, FluMist, is a live attenuated virus. That makes sense because you need cells to be actually producing viral proteins and triggering infection pattern recognition pathways to stimulate a response. There have been studies using RNA/DNA vaccine candidates for inhaled vaccines, some of them have been promising. I don't think anyone has tried a protein subunit inhaled vaccine because it's very unlikely to work.
What I find objectionable is that they are public about it, especially people like Church who because of his profile is giving credence to it. Once you go public with experimentation like this, you are implicitly inviting others to give it a go. Church may not know enough to run a vaccine trial but I would have thought that any lab scientist has enough context to make a decision on whether to do this *privately* for themselves, but the converse of that is I would also have thought that they would know better than to do it and I was clearly wrong about that.
posted by atrazine at 4:44 AM on September 1, 2020 [30 favorites]
Even most immunologists don't know much vaccinology. Historically they've been separate fields with vaccinology being essentially empirical, most of our greatest vaccine public health achievements took place with vaccines for which we didn't really understand the mechanism. We didn't know about B and T cells and even the basics of how they worked together until the late 1960s and we are still discovering new sub-types.
It wasn't until the early aughts, for instance, that people went back to already approved vaccines like vaccinia/smallpox to study the immune basis for how they worked. That's decades after we even *stopped* giving it, let alone when we started.
Until very recently, it was assumed that the response to Vaccinia was to produce large quantities of one neutralising antibody. Actually it turns out that the vaccine stimulates production of six or more type to different epitopes. We didn't know that until well after we had eradicated smallpox.
The current wave of new vaccine technologies, including the viral vectored Oxford vaccine and the mRNA Moderna vaccine are a product of this new approach to vaccinology.
Look, if these guys want to make random peptides, mix it with a chitosan adjuvant1 and insufflate it, that's their right. I think it's very unlikely to work because of the nature of mucosal immune response. The oral mucosa are a hostile environment that "expects" a certain amount of foreign protein and cannot simply generate a strong immune response to every peptide fragment snuffled up from the air. Otherwise our airways would be permanently inflamed. As far as I know, the only licensed inhaled vaccine, FluMist, is a live attenuated virus. That makes sense because you need cells to be actually producing viral proteins and triggering infection pattern recognition pathways to stimulate a response. There have been studies using RNA/DNA vaccine candidates for inhaled vaccines, some of them have been promising. I don't think anyone has tried a protein subunit inhaled vaccine because it's very unlikely to work.
What I find objectionable is that they are public about it, especially people like Church who because of his profile is giving credence to it. Once you go public with experimentation like this, you are implicitly inviting others to give it a go. Church may not know enough to run a vaccine trial but I would have thought that any lab scientist has enough context to make a decision on whether to do this *privately* for themselves, but the converse of that is I would also have thought that they would know better than to do it and I was clearly wrong about that.
posted by atrazine at 4:44 AM on September 1, 2020 [30 favorites]
Flagged as fantastic, Atrazine.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:06 AM on September 1, 2020
posted by en forme de poire at 6:06 AM on September 1, 2020
Forgot my footnote.
(1) With an inactivated virus or a peptide subunit vaccine you need to include an adjuvant. This is a substance that "pisses off" the immune system by triggering pattern recognition receptors, these receptors respond to generic signals of infection or cell damage and stimulate the adaptive immune system.
posted by atrazine at 6:10 AM on September 1, 2020 [9 favorites]
(1) With an inactivated virus or a peptide subunit vaccine you need to include an adjuvant. This is a substance that "pisses off" the immune system by triggering pattern recognition receptors, these receptors respond to generic signals of infection or cell damage and stimulate the adaptive immune system.
posted by atrazine at 6:10 AM on September 1, 2020 [9 favorites]
These Scientists Are Giving Themselves D.I.Y. Coronavirus Vaccines
In June, the Washington attorney general filed a lawsuit against Mr. Stine not only for pitching the mayor with unsupported claims, but also for administering his unproven vaccine to about 30 people, charging each $400. In May, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter warning Mr. Stine to stop “misleadingly” representing his product...posted by BungaDunga at 9:46 AM on September 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
A man in his 60s in Montana, who asked to remain anonymous for privacy concerns, said he flew Mr. Stine out to inoculate him and his family. Now, he said, they have been able to return to “normal behavior,” such as having lunch with friends whose jobs put them at high risk for exposure. The man even joined Mr. Stine to visit a police officer friend in Washington State who had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and was “on death’s door.” According to all three who were present, no one wore a mask. And Mr. Stine sat close to the sick officer in an enclosed space as he gave him a treatment.
... this is that plot line from “World War Z” isn’t it? And what is worrying is that you can make this joke about the ‘plot lines’ and the ‘writers’ but there has been a real tendency for these ‘storylines’ to become ‘real.’ ...though I imagine that the twist here will be one of these home brew vaccines actually mutates a more virulent and higher morbidity virus ...
I think maybe I need a break from all this
posted by From Bklyn at 10:57 AM on September 1, 2020
I think maybe I need a break from all this
posted by From Bklyn at 10:57 AM on September 1, 2020
Nah, these homebrew vaccines don't even contain a live virus. This may be idiotic but at least the contagion risk is near zero.
posted by benzenedream at 12:02 PM on September 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 12:02 PM on September 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
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it’s an amazingly surreal experience knowing that I may have an immunity to this constant danger [and] that my continued existence through this pandemic will be a useful data set. It lends a level of meaning and purpose.
This is not science. This is cargo cult faith.
Calling it a "DIY vaccine" is wrong because there is no proof that it works (or is safe). It would be wrong to even call it an "experimental vaccine" because there is no experimental design and no mechanism by which it could even be proven to work. The neutral-to-positive tone taken by the article's author is flatly irresponsible.
posted by jedicus at 9:02 AM on August 31, 2020 [115 favorites]