H/T Winston and notyetbeguntofight CTH
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Scientists unravel 50-year-old medical mystery behind toddlers’ deaths from RSV vaccine
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-scientists-unravel-year-old-medical-mystery.html
When scientists were developing a vaccine against COVID-19, a key worry was the potential to cause disease enhancement. It’s a complication that occurs when a vaccine does the opposite of what it’s intended to do and instead makes someone more vulnerable when exposed to a pathogen.
For COVID-19, the fear can be traced back to an infamous clinical trial in the 1960s for an experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most common cause of pneumonia in children. The vaccine used an inactivated form of the virus, but almost 80 percent of the children who were vaccinated and later exposed to the real virus were hospitalized for severe illness. Two toddlers died. The boys’ deaths stopped RSV vaccine development for decades—and was one reason scientists pursued the novel MRNA vaccine design against COVID-19 instead of using an inactivated form of the respiratory virus.
The cause of these toddlers’ deaths was a medical mystery for decades—until now, according to a new study co-authored by Tulane University researchers in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
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Timing of article is………….interesting…………………..
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Doesn’t clear the COVID-19 vaccines in any way:
When scientists were developing a vaccine against COVID-19, a key worry was the potential to cause disease enhancement. It’s a complication that occurs when a vaccine does the opposite of what it’s intended to do and instead makes someone more vulnerable when exposed to a pathogen.
For COVID-19, the fear can be traced back to an infamous clinical trial in the 1960s for an experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most common cause of pneumonia in children.
The results of the study could make future attempts at developing an RSV vaccine safer by providing a molecular signature of enhanced RSV disease. Future vaccine developers can look for these markers when they test promising candidates in preclinical models.
Now, how about looking for those markers in the current COVID-19 vaccines. Think they ever will? Who’d provide the funding for the study? And is that the only marker to look for to prevent possible disease enhancement? Doubtful…
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About the ADE to which they refer.
Why ADE Hasn’t Been a Problem With COVID Vaccines
— Even with new variants, it’s unlikely antibody-dependent enhancement will be an issue
March 16, 2021
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/91648
ADE a Non-Issue With COVID Vaccines
Scientists say that ADE is pretty much a non-issue with COVID-19 vaccines, but what are they basing this on?
From the early stages of COVID-19 vaccine development, scientists sought to target a SARS-CoV-2 protein that was least likely to cause ADE. For example, when they found out that targeting the nucleoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 might cause ADE, they quickly abandoned that approach. The safest route seemed to be targeting the S2 subunit of the spike protein, and they ran with that, wrote Derek Lowe, PhD, in his Science Translational Medicine blog “In the Pipeline.” (link: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/antibody-dependent-enhancement-and-coronavirus-vaccines )
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OOPS! Apparently, the author of the above didn’t read Derek Lowe, PhD’s UPDATE of what she referenced. Text in brackets below is crossed out on his page at the above link:
The SARS experience taught us a lot of extremely useful lessons, as it turned out. SARS-Cov-2 is rather closely related to the 2003 SARS coronavirus, and if you’re going to have a worldwide pandemic, you’re far better off with one that’s so much like something you’ve already poured R&D investments into! In this case, the two big take-homes were that coronavirus vaccines could indeed suffer from ADE, and that this seemed to depend on which protein you chose to base your vaccine around. Specifically, it was the vaccines that targeted the N (nucleoprotein) antigen of the coronavirus that had ADE problems, [while the ones that targeted the S (Spike) protein did not.] Update: this isn’t accurate. There was trouble after immunization with a nucleoprotein-directed vaccine, but ADE could also be seen with some of the Spike-directed vaccine candidates as well – see reviews here, here, and here. [links on his web page]
It is a disgrace that red states are not conducting their own investigation of these shots, especially now that they are targeting young kids. There is quite literally nothing the feds can do that will elicit a meaningful response. The painful reality is there is one party.— Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) October 26, 2021
* * * RSV / ADE * * *