As we face a winter with the triple threat of Covid, Flu and RSV, it is good to see that progress is being made on a mRNA based universal flu vaccine. Early results look good for 'universal' flu vaccine that could stop the next pandemic https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...flu-vaccine-that-could-stop-the-next-pandemic A new flu vaccine might not seem like a big deal, but this isn’t the kind of vaccine you can currently get at the local pharmacy. In a study published this week in Science, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania reported the first results from animal trials of a new messenger RNA-based vaccine against the flu. This is not a vaccine against a specific strain of flu, like those which are mixed together to generate the cocktail seen in annual flu shots. This is a vaccine against flu. All flu. Even against strains we’ve yet to see. The reason that flu is so difficult to stop, and that it returns year after year in spite of readily available vaccines, is that flu viruses have a revolving set of surface proteins that can be swapped out without affecting the virus’ effectiveness, while allowing the virus to bypass existing immunity. So people can catch Influenza Type A H3N2in one season, the follow it up with H5N1 the next year. Or they can come down with a version of the equally severe Influenza Type B with wholly different mix. The Type A flu is particularly worrisome, because it can spread from animals to people. Many of the past large pandemics have emerged in just this way, with a new flu strain jumping from birds or farm animals to people. But if the new vaccine is as effective as animal trials suggest, the possibility of such a pandemic would be greatly reduced. Because this is a vaccine against Type A or Type B, H-anything N-anything. It’s a universal flu vaccine. In those names of flu, “H” stands for hemagglutinin, and it’s the protein the virus uses to stick to the outside of a cell. “N” is kind of the opposite. It’s the protein neuraminidasethat the virus uses to escape from a cell after reproducing. If you think of human cells as having lots of entry and exit doors, each one of which has a different lock, H and N are the keys the virus is carrying to get in and get out. If two viruses that are are coded H5N1 and H5N3, they’re both carrying the same (or similar) version of hemagglutinin, but they’re carrying quite different versions of neuraminidase. Still, if someone was recently infected by the first virus, they’d have pretty good protection against the second. However, if something like H3N2 rolled up, neither of the defenses the body has cranked up against H5N1 would hold. Each year, researchers look at the cases of flu they are seeing, with an eye toward those which haven’t been around in awhile, and try to produce a vaccine that hits the most likely varieties. They get especially worried when they see a virus in animals carrying a protein pair that hasn’t run around in humans for decades. That’s what makes this new vaccine strategy exciting. Current influenza vaccines, composed of four influenza viral antigens, provide little protection beyond the viral strains targeted by the vaccines. Universal influenza vaccines that can protect against all 20 lineages could help to prevent the next pandemic. Designing and manufacturing a vaccine that can provide such broad protection has been challenging, but the demonstration of the feasibility of mRNA–lipid nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccines offers a possible strategy. If it seems like that vaccine design includes just about every buzzword for hot new vaccine technologies, you’re right. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from BioNTech and Moderna are the fist such to be authorized for use in humans. But now that the door is open, there’s tremendous potential in this technology, including a superior flu vaccine. The vaccine produced by by the Penn team targets all 18 known versions of hemagglutinin. So even if something like the current flu being passed around among bird species makes the leap to humans tomorrow, we would already have a vaccine that was substantially effective. This wouldn’t mean an end to annual flu shots, and those shots would continue to focus on the most likely varieties to be seen in a season. However, they could also sharply reduce the chance of serious illness from any flu. There are still several steps remaining to show that this vaccine is safe and effective for humans. Among other things, there are concerns that getting enough vaccine to generate a response to all 18 versions of “H” may turn out to require too large a dose, leading to unpleasant reactions. (Which is exactly why it’s difficult to make a universal COVID-19 shot that addresses all known variants.) But since the technologies involved in this vaccine have already been tested against COVID-19, expect this vaccine to move forward without running into worries about the use of mRNA or lipid capsules. It won’t be a part of any vaccine you use this year. But next year? Maybe.
More information on a mRNA universal Flu vaccine... Experimental flu shot aims to target 20 influenza viruses in a single vaccine https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...u-vaccine-single-shot-20-viruses/10759632002/ For a half-century, scientists have been trying to develop a vaccine that would protect against the most dangerous flu viruses. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have a new approach, based on the mRNA technology that proved so effective against COVID-19. Their idea is to target all 20 different types of influenza viruses in a single shot. Their new vaccine wouldn't save us from needing an annual flu shot. But if it proves out, it could protect against never-before-seen strains of influenza that could cause a pandemic. Here's what a study showed and what such a vaccine could accomplish: Why has it been so hard to develop a universal flu vaccine? Annual influenza vaccines protect against four strains of flu, but because the strains circulating in people can change so much, we typically need an entirely new vaccine each year to help prevent serious illness. Plus, with 20 possible types of flu virus, vaccines that protect against four strains likely offer little protection against a pandemic caused by one of the other 16 influenza types. Flu that circulates in birds, pigs and other animals has the potential to jump into people. Most previous universal flu vaccine efforts have tried targeting parts of the influenza virus that are present across many strains. Unfortunately, these targets have been hard to reach or didn't provide the hoped-for effectiveness. By taking aim at all 20 different types of influenza simultaneously, the scientists behind the new vaccine hope to provide at least some protection against all of the possible lineages. "We decided to throw the whole kitchen sink into this vaccine," said Scott Hensley, who led the research, published Thursday in the journal Science. What does this vaccine do that others haven't been able to? Using conventional production methods, it wouldn't be possible to target the full spectrum of flu viruses. But mRNA vaccines can include at least 20 different antigens for essentially the same cost as a single one, said Hensley, a microbiology professor at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine. Researchers were pleasantly surprised that their vaccine could effectively target so many different strains at once – and, at least in animals, generate an immune response against all of them simultaneously. "To have 20 and have robust immune responses to each was very interesting to me," said Alyson Kelvin, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, who was not involved in the research, but wrote an accompanying column. "It's something I didn't think was possible." In mice and ferrets, which are used in flu studies because they can catch the same influenza strains we can, the vaccine looked just as safe as the typical flu vaccine. It's not yet clear how this vaccine might be used, she said. Potentially, it could be updated every few years as the circulating strains change, or maybe even more than 20 lineages could be included: "I don't know what the limit is." How could this shot help limit a flu pandemic? Scientists have long worried about a flu virus jumping from animals to people, as happened in 2009 with swine flu and has happened roughly once a decade for the past century. We've been relatively lucky in recent years: Flu deaths in the U.S. ranged from just 5,000 last year to more than 50,000 in both 2014 and 2017. Pandemic flu in 1957 and 1968 more than over 100,000 each, and nearly 700,000 Americans died of the 1918 flu. Scientists want to be prepared in case another strain comes along that is both highly contagious and deadly. People generally have their best immune memory against the first strains of flu they encounter as children. If H1 influenza is common in their early years, as it has been for more than the past decade, then they will likely avoid severe illness from all H1 strains for the rest of their lives. But they might be more vulnerable to other strains. "Our childhood infections, our first exposures to influenza virus, are super important for affecting how we respond to other influenza strains later in life," Hensley said. That's why during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009, older people, who had seen H1 influenza during childhood, were less likely to fall ill than people born after 1968, when that variety had stopped circulating. "Why be at the mercy of whichever influenza strain we encountered early in life?" Hensley asked. "Instead of just being dependent on chance, let's make a vaccine that introduces all these antigens at the same time." Hensley said he would hope to eventually vaccinate a young child against all 20 different flu variants before age 5, providing them broad immune memory for a lifetime. Vaccinating animals that had already been exposed to influenza also provided broad protection, the study showed. The immune system is used to handling viral proteins by the dozen during an infection, Hensley said, so such a vaccine should continue be safe. Theoretically, the same shot could also safely deliver antigens against measles, RSV and coronaviruses. "That is a longer-term goal to try to figure out what is the maximum number of antigens we can include in these vaccines. Can we have 50 antigens or 100 antigens?" Hensley asked. "These are some of the questions we're working on in my lab right now." What needs to happen before this vaccine could become available? Researchers are currently testing their experimental vaccine in nonhuman primates, after showing it worked successfully in mice and ferrets. Human trials could start as early as next year. The first trials would probably target no more than five different types of flu, Hensley said, expanding to more if the technology proves out. Regulatory authorities have never been faced with such broad-spectrum vaccines before, so they will have to develop a framework for analyzing them, which could slow the development process. "There may be manufacturing or regulatory challenges for a 20-valent vaccine, but this study shows an important proof-of-concept for multiplexing flu vaccines," said Dr. Dan Barouch, who directs the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and was not involved in the work. It will also be challenging to study a 20-variety vaccine, Kelvin said, because the H4 flu lineage, for example, hasn't been known to circulate in humans. "I'm in favor of this type of approach," she said. "I just want us to be having the right discussions on how to regulate it."
Quick Answer: No Do COVID-19 vaccines really have worse side effects than other vaccines? Here's what experts say Anti-vaxxers say COVID-19 vaccines are risky due to side effects. Here are the facts https://www.salon.com/2022/12/11/do...s-than-other-vaccines-heres-what-experts-say/
The worst vaccines (as in worse side effects) are Polio and FLU vaccines when they were first used because they were contaminated in their production. Just as bad, they were first given to immigrants and minorities...as if they were canaries (birds) in the coal mines. wrbtrader
Finally - a deep, solid data set released directly from a government (under FOI, natch). Germany. Here is the money shot: m ore here: https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/the-most-important-dataset-of-the
More charts from the presentation: Population of Germany 84mn. 2.5 mn hospitalized from the vax. That means ~3% of the population was hospitalized from the vax. Oh, look - a doubling of a primary condition associated with vaccine injury beginning IMMEDIATELY after the vaccine rollout. Must have been a 1 yr delayed reaction to Covid, that, uh... never stopped. somehow.