New emerging birdflu strain.

[mamakay]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-bird-flu.html

"However, we don't have any evidence to show whether this virus is more dangerous or less dangerous than any other H5N1 [bird flu] viruses," Guan said.

This novel variant may have become dominant ... because it was not as easily affected as other strains by the avian vaccine used to prevent H5 infection," Guan said.

:

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

"This novel variant may have become dominant ... because it was not as easily affected as other strains by the avian vaccine used to prevent H5 infection," Guan said.

"This [means] that H5 avian vaccines are not able to prevent infection by this virus as efficiently as they do with other types of H5N1."

Scientists fear that the new strain may have arisen in response to over-reliance on the sole existing bird flu vaccine.

"It is not surprising that H5N1 continues to evolve," said Hon Ip, a diagnostic virologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, who is not affiliated with the new research.

"It is a virus that is looking for opportunities, and this is a good example of how, if there is a weakness, Mother Nature somehow is going to exploit it."

You should have put up a poll Mamakay.

Something like:

Tick that which applies:

IQ of Bird Flu Experts = ZERO

IQ of Bird Flu virus = MENSA.

It would appear that viruses are smarter than people

[Plummeting]

I read about this the other day and that guy, what's his name? The one from St. Jude's who's been working on the vax for several years? He was saying that the new strain had nothing to do with the vaccine, but that this meant he'd have to get to work on developing a new vaccine for the new strain. Dingleberry. In the article I read, most of the other experts were saying it was probably the vaccine that caused the emergence of the new strain. He seemed to be the lone voice of dissent. Interestingly, though, even those who said it was probably because of the vaccine were not in the least perturbed and all agreed that the perfect solution was to create a new vaccine. Oi.

[mamakay]

...just makin' it up as they go along....

You know, and if they have actually vaccinated the virus into one that's more easily transmissible to humans, I bet no one would even care.
Everyone would be like "Oh, well, they did all they could".


ETA: oh, and our birdflu savior's name is Robert Webster.

[Plummeting]

Originally Posted by mamakay

You know, and if they have actually vaccinated the virus into one that's more easily transmissible to humans, I bet no one would even care.
Everyone would be like "Oh, well, they did all they could".

Yeah - if they even knew that was what happened.

[dymanic]

Originally Posted by mamakay

You know, and if they have actually vaccinated the virus into one that's more easily transmissible to humans, I bet no one would even care. Everyone would be like "Oh, well, they did all they could".

Sorry mamakay, but on this one you couldn't be more wrong.

About a year ago, China announced its intention to vaccinate 14 billion birds. That struck me at once as sounding hopelessly ambitious, and the experts soon began expressing concerns about the possible implications of the corner-cutting such an undertaking would almost certainly involve. The Chinese had already been sharply criticized by the epidemiological community for being less than forthcoming with information regarding the status of H5N1 in their country, and it certainly doesn't seem paranoid to question how diligent they would likely be about quality control during a massive poultry vaccination effort (never mind the questionable value of their new, cheap vaccine to begin with). Those of you who are concerned about the possibility of such a practice driving viral evolution in unpredictible directions are right in line with the consensus among (non-Chinese) experts.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by dymanic

Sorry mamakay, but on this one you couldn't be more wrong.

About a year ago, China announced its intention to vaccinate 14 billion birds. That struck me at once as sounding hopelessly ambitious, and the experts soon began expressing concerns about the possible implications of the corner-cutting such an undertaking would almost certainly involve. The Chinese had already been sharply criticized by the epidemiological community for being less than forthcoming with information regarding the status of H5N1 in their country, and it certainly doesn't seem paranoid to question how diligent they would likely be about quality control during a massive poultry vaccination effort (never mind the questionable value of their new, cheap vaccine to begin with). Those of you who are concerned about the possibility of such a practice driving viral evolution in unpredictible directions are right in line with the consensus among (non-Chinese) experts.

No, I think you've missed the boat.

We discussed the whole business of bird vaccines at the time.

What we are talking about now, is that because of what we said would probably happen a year ago, all the manufacturers doing the HUMAN bird flu vaccine have to reshuffle their cards, coz right now, they are making a vaccine to the old virus type which might not be the right one any more, because of the bird vaccine.

Perhaps they will say Oh shucks it doesn't matter, coz there might be some cross protection

Which as insider explained is simply impossible. Particularly with a strain which has swept aside any ability of the previous vaccine, and has become dominant BECAUSE of the vaccine.

And by the way Dymanic,... please remember that the same thing happens with some human vaccines, like the bacterial meningitis vaccines. Ofteon what happens is that a different type sweeps in and takes over...

[mamakay]

And by the way Dymanic,... please remember that the same thing happens with some human vaccines, like the bacterial meningitis vaccines. Ofteon what happens is that a different type sweeps in and takes over...

And it's always a crapshoot regarding the pathogenicity of the new organism that emerges.
Might be milder, might be the next plague.

Perhaps they will say Oh shucks it doesn't matter, coz there might be some cross protection

I think that's the whole idea behind Webster's "pre-pandemic vaccine".

[Plummeting]

Dymanic, why is it that you believe the only reason this has happened is because the vaccine was inferior? The same thing has happened with Hib and Prevnar. Those are for bacteria, but the fact remains that these vaccines have caused other bacteria and serotypes not covered by the vaccines to become the dominant cause of invasive disease. Are you therefore saying that these vaccines are also inferior or that the campaign to vaccinate for these diseases was flawed in the same way the Chinese H5N1 vaccination campaign was? If not, why are you critical of one but not the other?

Hmmm. And I just thought of something else. You said "nevermind the questionable value of their new, cheap vaccine to begin with," and I think if the vaccine had not worked, this wouldn't be a problem. If the vaccine hadn't caused the other strains to be less common, then this one wouldn't be emerging. Remember, NO ONE had previously come up with a vaccine for this particular strain, so it wasn't some failing on the part of the Chinese gov't to create an effective vaccine that caused the emergence of the newer strain. Either the vaccine didn't work and therefore cannot be responsible for this new problem, or it DID work and is therefore not of such questionable value after all.

[dymanic]

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

What we are talking about now, is that because of what we said would probably happen a year ago, all the manufacturers doing the HUMAN bird flu vaccine have to reshuffle their cards, coz right now, they are making a vaccine to the old virus type which might not be the right one any more, because of the bird vaccine.

For what it's worth, I have never been among those who take an optimistic view of the prospects for development of an effective pre-pandemic vaccine. Seen this?

Perhaps they will say Oh shucks it doesn't matter, coz there might be some cross protection

Which as insider explained is simply impossible.

What insider did was to demonstrate that conducting a meaningful discussion in this forum on the issue of cross protection is simply impossible.

[mamakay]

The report says that vaccine development results so far "have not been promising," in part because H5N1 viruses have branched off into a number of diverse subgroups, and vaccines that seem to work against one clade, or group, don't work well against others.

That sure does sound a lot like our seasonal influenza situation.

What insider did was to demonstrate that conducting a meaningful discussion in this forum on the issue of cross protection is simply impossible.

If your point were true, shouldn't your chances of catching the flu go down incrementally every year if you get the shot every year?
Honest question.

[dymanic]

Originally Posted by mamakay

If your point were true, shouldn't your chances of catching the flu go down incrementally every year if you get the shot every year?
Honest question.

You can't just isolate a single variable like that.

Exposure to a wider range of viral antigens does result in more extensive immune memory, whether exposure is from vaccination or actual infection. So, as time goes by, there are an increasing number of strains with antigens which can be easily recognized by your immune memory cells. But that doesn't necessarily mean that your chances of catching the flu are reduced. The virus is constantly working to outflank those defenses by altering its antigenic structures through mutation and reassortment, and immune systems respond with new antibodies, etc. Some years, the virus gets the upper hand, and larger numbers of people become infected, and some years it's the other way around -- but the outcome of this struggle is not the only factor that influences one's chances of catching the flu.

Overall immune fitness declines with advancing age, and can also be impacted by lifestyle, diet, exposure to toxins, etc, and immune memory may degrade over time. The number of persons with whom one comes into contact on a daily basis makes a big difference -- and the breadth of immune memory among those individuals plays a role in determining which strains one is likely to encounter.

[mamakay]

Exposure to a wider range of viral antigens does result in more extensive immune memory, whether exposure is from vaccination or actual infection. So, as time goes by, there are an increasing number of strains with antigens which can be easily recognized by your immune memory cells. But that doesn't necessarily mean that your chances of catching the flu are reduced.

I'm still not seeing it.
Still looks to me like if the cross-reactive partially neutralizing antibodies theory were correct, the wider spectrum of antigenic memory of those who got the three different strains of dead flu viruses every year would increasingly become more and more and more immune to the flu over time, every year, at a rate that should quickly surpass their unvaccinated peers.

[LongIsland]

Originally Posted by dymanic

But that doesn't necessarily mean that your chances of catching the flu are reduced.

From the "Impact of Influenza Vaccination on Seasonal Mortality in the US Elderly Population" study (2005):

We attribute the decline in influenza-related mortality among people aged 65 to 74 years in the decade after the 1968 pandemic to the acquisition of immunity to the emerging A(H3N2) virus. We could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group. Because fewer than 10% of all winter deaths were attributable to influenza in any season, we conclude that observational studies substantially overestimate vaccination benefit.

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/con...ract/165/3/265

[Plummeting]

Originally Posted by dymanic

You can't just isolate a single variable like that.

Exposure to a wider range of viral antigens does result in more extensive immune memory, whether exposure is from vaccination or actual infection. So, as time goes by, there are an increasing number of strains with antigens which can be easily recognized by your immune memory cells. But that doesn't necessarily mean that your chances of catching the flu are reduced. The virus is constantly working to outflank those defenses by altering its antigenic structures through mutation and reassortment, and immune systems respond with new antibodies, etc. Some years, the virus gets the upper hand, and larger numbers of people become infected, and some years it's the other way around -- but the outcome of this struggle is not the only factor that influences one's chances of catching the flu.

Overall immune fitness declines with advancing age, and can also be impacted by lifestyle, diet, exposure to toxins, etc, and immune memory may degrade over time. The number of persons with whom one comes into contact on a daily basis makes a big difference -- and the breadth of immune memory among those individuals plays a role in determining which strains one is likely to encounter.

Well, actually you CAN isolate a single variable - at least enough to determine if it's having an effect. That's how research is done, dymanic. If it were impossible to ever isolate a single variable, then any research done on any vaccine would have to be considered irrelevant, because there would be no way we could tell that it was the vaccine, rather than overall fitness, diet, exposure to toxins, etc. that was having the effects. You know, the whole "controlling for confounding factors" thing? In fact, if it were utterly impossible to isolate variables, then no research would ever be worth the weight in the paper it was printed on, because it would be meaningless. Are you saying all research is meaningless? If you believe it's impossible to do a controlled study, then why are you getting your flu shot every year?

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if you think about all the implications of your answers before you hit 'submit'. Either you can isolate a single variable, which means you could study whether or not yearly flu vaccination has the effect mamakay mentioned, or you can't isolate a single variable, which means every vaccine and drug study ever conducted is worthless. You can't give one answer when it suits your agenda and another when it doesn't. Choose.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

But some mothers do'avem.

[dymanic]

Originally Posted by mamakay

Still looks to me like if the cross-reactive partially neutralizing antibodies theory were correct, the wider spectrum of antigenic memory of those who got the three different strains of dead flu viruses every year would increasingly become more and more and more immune to the flu over time, every year, at a rate that should quickly surpass their unvaccinated peers.

Humoral immune response is not a simple affair. Those who find the details excruciating might easily be forgiven for that, and I certainly am not opposed to taking a simple logical approach whenever possible, as you have just done. But I can't even begin to think of a way to express the problems I have with what you've just said without being guilty of "wallowing in minutiae".

Every time we've tried to discuss this, the threads ending up being closed due to the inability of some of the participants to maintain a civil tone (or perhaps it was the result of deliberate efforts to cause the threads to be closed; I was never quite sure which). This happens to be a subject which interests me very much, and besides reading about it, I enjoy nothing so much as discussing it with anyone who shares my fascination with the details (or at least tolerates it), whether they agree with my conclusions or not. I have little interest in getting into mudslinging contests with those who disagree with my conclusions on general principle. Maybe after I've been around a while longer, some of those individuals and I will manage to cultivate some of the mutual respect you and I seem to have developed, but we're not there yet. I don't see any reason to be optimistic about the prospects for a meaningful and polite discussion on the issue of cross-reactivity given the current atmosphere of this board. It's just as well, because I really don't have the time right now anyway.

In one of those dead threads, I recommended a book: Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Disease by Steven A. Frank. It can be downloaded free here: http://stevefrank.org/antiVar/antiVar.html (It's a 360-page, 2MB PDF). The prose is far less dense than what is typically found in journal articles. Anyone interested in humoral immune response in general and antibody binding/cross-reactivity in particular, have a read of that, and maybe we'll talk again in like January.

Originally Posted by Plummeting

Well, actually you CAN isolate a single variable - at least enough to determine if it's having an effect.

Yes, you can, though it is easier to do so with experimental evidence than it is with epidemiological evidence, as mamakay is attempting to do. Having determined that something is having an effect, you can easily be lured into supposing that you have a firm handle on the whole situation. What we're talking about is called "reductionism", and while it is indeed an indispensible tool for scientific investigation, attempting to make predictions based solely on observations made by isolating single variables has had embarassing results for many a scientist (non-scientists and pseudo-scientists, on the other hand, often carry bravely on, spared embarassment by their own narrow perspective, some going so far as to wear proudly the contempt they recieve from the "scientific establishment" as if it were a badge of honor).

[Plummeting]

Originally Posted by dymanic

Yes, you can, though it is easier to do so with experimental evidence than it is with epidemiological evidence, as mamakay is attempting to do. Having determined that something is having an effect, you can easily be lured into supposing that you have a firm handle on the whole situation. What we're talking about is called "reductionism", and while it is indeed an indispensible tool for scientific investigation, attempting to make predictions based solely on observations made by isolating single variables has had embarassing results for many a scientist (non-scientists and pseudo-scientists, on the other hand, often carry bravely on, spared embarassment by their own narrow perspective, some going so far as to wear proudly the contempt they recieve from the "scientific establishment" as if it were a badge of honor).

So are you saying it's impossible to determine if receiving a yearly flu vaccine has a compounding effect in preventing influenza?

[mykdsmomy]

I say "Bring it". I'm so thoroughly sick of the whole bird flu scare.....bring on the big scary bird virus ....i'm really shaking...........................not.

[mamakay]

In one of those dead threads, I recommended a book: Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Disease by Steven A. Frank. It can be downloaded free here: http://stevefrank.org/antiVar/antiVar.html (It's a 360-page, 2MB PDF). The prose is far less dense than what is typically found in journal articles. Anyone interested in humoral immune response in general and antibody binding/cross-reactivity in particular, have a read of that, and maybe we'll talk again in like January.

Ok, dymanic.
I'll read it and we can talk in January. I'm taking you on faith that you're not sending me off on a wild goose chase here.

I have to admit...the idea that what you're saying is right is extremely counterintuitive to me. I have a very strong feeling that this was a theory that was just thrown out there a long time ago and never properly debunked as it should have been.
But if there's real, solid evidence that this really is what's going on, and there's also solid evidence that there's a bunch of obscure confounding factors that really are preventing it from playing out the way it logically should at a glance, then I'm always open to reconsidering.