Many viruses (most famously HPV, but also the various hepatitis viruses that I can think off the top of my head, and maybe CMV) increase the risk of cancer in survivors.
Given that it seemingly affects so many body systems, what are the odds that SARS-CoV-2 infection will increase the probability of cancer years down the line? Obviously, we won't know the 10 year risk of even the early strains for at least another 8 years, but ....
Feb 11, 2022·edited Feb 13, 2022Liked by John Skylar, PhD
Those intranasal vaccine results are really exciting. I hope the NIH and the Biden Administration are paying attention, and are thinking about ways they can help accelerate such research.
Regarding the Omicron booster, obviously we need to see the human data before drawing any strong conclusions. We'll likely get those data in a month or two. I wonder, though: might we expect the results to be different, whatever they ultimately are, if subjects are given, say, Novavax's (pending) Omicron-specific booster after priming with an mRNA vaccine?
Also, what exactly is the functional significance of the Moderna vaccine's higher dose? Does more mRNA mean more spike protein is produced following vaccination? Does it actually contain more than 3x more mRNA, or is it made up of proportionally more LNP? Even if not, do the different LNPs in the two mRNA vaccines have at effect on immunogenicity or reactogenicity?
Request: at some point (I know you have lots of topics), can you write about the initial dose effect on disease severity? I've had a lot of people argue with me that infection caused by a single virion is likely to be just as bad as getting a trillion. Or, could you point me to another source if one exists? In this article, your discussion of the mouse work implicitly assumes what I sometimes call the "Initial Inoculum" effect (because I like the assonance).
Did you notice that Steve Novella also wrote about the nasal spray work you discuss? I'll duplicate my comment from Steve's blog:
There are quite a few nasal spray vaccines in development. Russia announced a trial of Sputnik 5 as a spray last year. ImmunityBio is testing one both in the US and South Africa. A Chinese firm is testing at least one (already through Phase 2). SII has one in Phase 1. There's one being tested in Iran with what seems to be a similar protocol. Cuba's testing one as well. There are more.
So, there are several nasal spray vaccines already in human trials.
Continuing with the sampling question: what do you think of the system, used among other places in Massachusetts, of sampling SARS-CoV-2 levels in sewage to get a rough idea of current incidence in the population?
I am inviting you to speculate about something.
Many viruses (most famously HPV, but also the various hepatitis viruses that I can think off the top of my head, and maybe CMV) increase the risk of cancer in survivors.
Given that it seemingly affects so many body systems, what are the odds that SARS-CoV-2 infection will increase the probability of cancer years down the line? Obviously, we won't know the 10 year risk of even the early strains for at least another 8 years, but ....
Those intranasal vaccine results are really exciting. I hope the NIH and the Biden Administration are paying attention, and are thinking about ways they can help accelerate such research.
Regarding the Omicron booster, obviously we need to see the human data before drawing any strong conclusions. We'll likely get those data in a month or two. I wonder, though: might we expect the results to be different, whatever they ultimately are, if subjects are given, say, Novavax's (pending) Omicron-specific booster after priming with an mRNA vaccine?
Also, what exactly is the functional significance of the Moderna vaccine's higher dose? Does more mRNA mean more spike protein is produced following vaccination? Does it actually contain more than 3x more mRNA, or is it made up of proportionally more LNP? Even if not, do the different LNPs in the two mRNA vaccines have at effect on immunogenicity or reactogenicity?
Request: at some point (I know you have lots of topics), can you write about the initial dose effect on disease severity? I've had a lot of people argue with me that infection caused by a single virion is likely to be just as bad as getting a trillion. Or, could you point me to another source if one exists? In this article, your discussion of the mouse work implicitly assumes what I sometimes call the "Initial Inoculum" effect (because I like the assonance).
Did you notice that Steve Novella also wrote about the nasal spray work you discuss? I'll duplicate my comment from Steve's blog:
There are quite a few nasal spray vaccines in development. Russia announced a trial of Sputnik 5 as a spray last year. ImmunityBio is testing one both in the US and South Africa. A Chinese firm is testing at least one (already through Phase 2). SII has one in Phase 1. There's one being tested in Iran with what seems to be a similar protocol. Cuba's testing one as well. There are more.
This is a great resource: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/track-covid-19-vaccines-advancing-through-clinical-trials-67382
So, there are several nasal spray vaccines already in human trials.
Continuing with the sampling question: what do you think of the system, used among other places in Massachusetts, of sampling SARS-CoV-2 levels in sewage to get a rough idea of current incidence in the population?