As I said with the passage of time. Corona is a new virus (in the human population anyway). New virus, new and rushed vaccines. As for the % of true believer anti-vaxers? that varies slightly from country to country. Where I live possibly in the 2-3% range , don't know for certain. But of course the larger population a country has more people that people there are to let any virus stay in circulation.
This is incorrect, wrong its not a left vs right issue. As you note many people who object to the COVID vaccine have been vaccinated previously. The difference is that COVID a new virus. Whooping cough, measles, mumps etc? Are long standing, established illnesses against which the vast majority of the population (in western nations at least) have already been been vaccinated and have been for decades. Any one extra person deciding to get vaccinated for mumps etc is just one more random person in a long line getting a jab that science has had time to perfect and which has a proven track record of safety and efficacy. No rush, no pressure. With COVID however there was no pre-existing vaccine/vaccinated population or heard immunity. And with that comes enormous time pressure on medical authorities to ramp up vaccine production and get to heard immunity as quickly as possible. This is not a choice they have, the science gives them no option. Critically their decisions around the introduction and roll out of the vaccine aren't based on political viewpoints (albeit its axiomatic that their decisions will get hijacked by politics the moment politicians become involved). What is correct is that people have a choice about getting vaccinated, but then they also have a choice about obeying instructions from a life guard while swimming or getting their house rewired after an electrician tells them there's a fire hazard. And in this instance it wouldn't matter if people 'stood on their democratic right' not to get vaccinated if it were not for the fact those same people when they do get COVID immediately insist on their 'democratic right' to get immediate hospital treatment.
Deciding on getting the Covid shot is not like getting your house rewired. lol There are factors and concerns to any experimental drug. And don't even start with but but but its FDA approved. This shot has bypassed the safeguards we put in place for vaccine approvals. Its always been a 3 phase testing system for approval which also determines long term effects as its normally 8-10 years. We have no way of knowing what the long term effects are. The US government and Pfiser don't have the best reputation in the world for honesty when it comes to vaccines Nobody is liable if you experience any adverse reactions We know that pre infected have much better immunity than vaccinated This Covid shot doesn't prevent you from getting Covid It doesn't stop you from spreading Covid And it needs boosters to stay effective All it really does is help you cope with an infection. Thats it. Meaning, it isn't a vaccine, its gene therapy. So what is the overwhelming compelling reason why pre infected individuals should be taking this shot?
Same thing exactly - risk assessment i.e what are the risks of doing X vs not doing X. Secondly it is a vaccine. A vaccine is 'any substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease. Note the highlighted section. MRA vaccines and other new/emerging technologies other than traditional mechanisms for producing an immune response are a vaccine. Any drug or compound that produces a sustained, effective and targeted immune response is classed as a vaccine. Gene therapies, if they generate the relevant immunity are vaccines. You are vaccinated if you receive a man made drug or, synthetic viral component etc that engenders a specific immunity, end of story. Its the effect not the cause that determines the definition of vaccine. If drinking half a gallon of orange juice magically induced a permanent immune response to a specific virus it could be classed as a 'vaccine'. As for being pre-infected with COVID? That normally generates immunity of varying effectiveness for varying periods of time. But in the case of COVID research indicates it might not be for long and there's nothing to prevent you getting re-infected by another strain. So its no more of magic bullet against COVID than any of the current generation of vaccines. If you've had it recently ? Probably good to go, a year ago? Who knows? That would require several antibody tests over time to plot a curve
fasting does something similar via autophagy (we did not evolve to eat 3 meals a day), thus autophagy was a process the body used to last longer during famine and such, and as a benefit, this helped clean the body of old cells, malformed proteins, virus's, ect..... the thing I would fear about a vaccine for someone older is that they would have many of these cells, and killing them all at once could be bad
It provides no immunity. All it does is help you cope with it. Doesn't stop the spread, Doesn't stop you from getting it, Doesn't stop vaccinated from being hospitalized. Hence the word sustained. Since when do vaccines need 6 month boosters to be effective? You are immunized against a virus or disease if you are protected from it. Trying to protect you from it doesn't count. There is no research that claims your natural immunity to Covid is waning. In fact, the research proves otherwise. Vaccinated individuals are 20 times more likely to be reinfected and 13 times more likely to be hospitalized than pre infected. And you can thank John Hopkins and the medical teams going to Israel, which is the largest real world study TO DATE with 88% vaccinated for the information Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-once-confers-much-greater-immunity-vaccine-vaccination-remains-vital
Claim 1) This is incorrect: All the COVID vaccines provided a high degree of immunity to the original strains of the virus they were designed to counter. Omicron vaccines in the works now and other versions designed to be more long lasting and more effective against multiple strains are now in the pipeline. Fact it is extremely difficult to produce an effective vaccine in advance of an outbreak by trying to predict in advance what the strain in question will look like. This is the problem vaccine produces have every year with the flu virus and its one of the reason flu vaccines aren't as effective as they could be. Albeit universal vaccines are in the pipeline after decades of research. Second error: No vaccine in the world is 100% effective, 100% of the time. They all have efficacy rates of less than 100%. And no vaccine stops you 'getting a virus'. They are not garlic to a vampire. They work by generating an immune response to a particular disease once it's entered the body. You still get infected and depending on the individual & how effective the vaccine is can still have some symptoms. Third error; until Omicron came along COVID vaccines were highly effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths and still are albeit to a lesser extent. See below; Claim 2: This is incorrect: Many vaccines require boosters. The fact this is so does not arbitrarily make them ineffective. Both the measles and hepatitis vaccines require booster shots for example. Also immunity to a disease can and does wain over time, depending on the disease concerned. This is problem for many vaccines not just COVID. Depending on the likelihood catching the illness and the serious of the disease the solution is either a better vaccine or a booster see below: https://www.science.org/content/art...rising-answers-may-help-protect-people-longer Claim 3: This is incorrect: It is a myth that the purpose of any vaccine is to prevent disease. The secondary purpose of all vaccines is to reduce the seriousness of infection in the event the vaccine fails to produce complete protection. It is wel documented scientific fact that can and do vaccines reduce both the severity of an illness and length of time of infection.See see the chart above as an example. of the 'severity' issue. Death being a pretty clear indication of 'severity in anyones books. disease. Also see link below https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/disease-vaccinated-populations Claim 4) This is incorrect: See link below https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-long-does-immunity-last-after-covid-19-what-we-know
So would you expect this will be something that any person would be able to choose to get, maybe at a pharmacy or, who knows, a Quest lab, without seeing a doctor, or would one need to get this done in the medical practitioner's office, or at least need a prescription? It's probably too soon to know, I would guess. Still, it is big news, in my book. Since your body is filled with these, I imagine, I would think that one shot should last you until all that backlog of dead cells has been removed-- think of it like a single infection. So one could probably go years between them. If one were to combine this with regular infusions of stem cells, which could theoretically take the place of missing cells, you would have a potential recipe for immortality!
This last bit might be years down the track, getting stems cells to migrate all parts of the body via infusion is still a work in progress. And beyond that there's still a huge amount of work to be done on the signalling pathways need to guide and activate them. For the rest I actually think the best thing about this technology, if it works out is that the vaccine doesn't actually have to be a one shot i.e. something that generates a strong, long term immune response to senescent cells. This is because it is just a vaccine, a needle. So what if like some commonly used vaccines today you end up needing one or more booster shots for it to be effective? Who cares. Suppose it works but the regime for humans is something like three shots in the first year and then a booster every two to three years after that? Again who cares. As you noted you wouldn't even need a doctors appointment, just a text reminder to go the pharmacy sometime this month for your semi-annual booster or whatever. No booking slots at your local medical center well in advance for a day long series of multiple injections and infusions possibly with an overnight stay while they monitor you for reactions or whatever SF style scenario someone might care to imagine. Just walk in, roll up your sleeve and walk out.
Even if you could have your physical state be returned-- say, through a gradual cycle of cell replacement, by embryonic stem cells (we are talking in the future, here, & not necessarily a treatment available in the U.S.)-- to that of a person in his 30s, or even 20s?
That is an interesting point, but the answer seems obvious: evolution does not occur merely to grant us our wants; it is all about the mechanism which makes it work, that is, reproduction. Even if someone could go on having kids, indefinitely, most people would eventually want to slow down and take some time for themselves. Evolution does not interact with, so cannot work towards promoting, that desire.
Very interesting! I had been aware of the benefit of intermittent fasting, but not of the specifics, regarding how it achieved its results. I just grabbed a quick Men's Health article link, for others who read your post, who aren't yet familiar with autophagy. https://www.menshealth.com/health/a...81QzHF9uiHxBxoU_Shfwo7V9xa4HdslBoC0zAQAvD_BwE
Prefacing my response with the caveat that if science ever came up with a way to vastly extend life, through cell replacement, this would be a highly problematic development-- because its, no doubt, great expense, would make it a reality, for only the world's richest. If the richest people were given this additional advantage, however, it would foreseeable lead to their accruing even greater wealth, and so, crucially, increasing their personal power, in contrast to, and over, the masses. So this could easily become a great challenge, to the ideals of "democracy." Hypothetically, though, the only way to fully "refresh" the body, would be to replace the foundational materials. That is to say, even if our bodies "make new cells," these are created through the division of older cells, which have already been depleted of some of their vitality. So what would need be done-- and this would need be an extremely prolonged, gradual process-- would be to actually infuse the body with new cells, while ridding the body of its older, but still functioning, cells. These two processes would need be extremely well coordinated, such that the new cells would move in to replace the old cells, with a minimum of delay. Each of these requirements, presents its own list of obstacles; but that is not the same as saying it is not possible. Some difficulties to be overcome, would be not just avoiding an immune response from the body, against the new cells but, if the immune system were the mechanism employed to remove the older cells, not provoking an autoimmune overstimulation of the body's defenses, against other cells in the body, as well. Also, would be the risk of depletion of one's lymphocytes, let's say, with the rebuilding project, and so being susceptible to other disease, during "reconstruction," gaining a foothold. Then, there is the disposal of all these cells: if they are processed through one's organs of detoxification, as the liver, there would be a very real likelihood of over-taxing that organ. Another entire dimension of the project would be the way these new cells would need be distributed. I am working from the assumption that these would be stem cells and, as such, undifferentiated. They would be "learning" their new identity, from the cells around them. Therefore it would be of vital importance that these cells were not clumped all adjacent to one another. A further reason for this sparse distribution, would be that one's cells develop strength, over time. Imagine, for example, if you replaced you entire bicep, and then had the muscle tone, in your arm, of a newborn. This applies to the heart muscle, as well. And let us not forget vascular cells. If one tried to pump the pressure of an adult heart through them, would they be able to handle it, without rupturing? I actually have thoughts about how to address these concerns, but have probably already written more than enough, before gaging your appetite, for such speculation.
The decision making process for the COVID vaccine is WELL documented. Beyond that, when full and complete testing was finished, it DID NOT change the minds of any anti-vaxers. Those folks were still opposed to vaccination in general as well as COVID vaccines in particular. I don't believe testing has anything to do with the sustained opposition of this minority group. Do you have a reason for rejecting the possible additional decades of life if you are going strong?
Yet again, there's been a long standing route for vaccines to hit the market, and it's very clear why. Medicine and drugs kept my parents going for a few more years with no quality of life, and I watched that. That route is not for me. If I was diagnosed with a cancer, that's nature's way of saying my time is up, I won't be doing treatments and medicine. So ideally, out with a heart attack in the night
Ok, THAT I understand to some extent (I hope). As we learn more ways to keep people alive it is a difficult choice to decide not to avail oneself of those methods - and more difficult yet to make decisions for loved ones who are fading. Doctors are well aware of this. They want people to and may push people to write their preferences for care in the event of medical calamity. Without direction, it's difficult for doctors to declare and end that is based on judgement of quality of life. They do not want to play god. Doctors absolutely will move to "palliative care", limiting to help for pain, etc. They will help move patients to different kinds of care facilities or home. There are hospitals that will help bring on an end if that is requested by all legal decision makers, including the patient if able. I would hope that doctors would not get in the way of your personal preferences, especially if written and/or discussed.
Yes! We do not have our government create healthcare solutions. We fully depend on capitalism, though we do fund original research that pharmaceutical companies can use as they create products. So, all our medical solutions (drugs, vaccines, equipment, etc.) are created for profit. They are not released to the public without a multi layered testing and certification regime being successfully completed to verify both safety and efficacy in treating specific health issues. Of course, it is up to hospitals and doctors to determine what certified solutions to use or prescribe.
It depends, really. Whoever makes this, their motive would be profit. Fortunately for them, people will pay just about anything to stay alive. And so, bringing the price down may give them more customers, and more profit overall, but if the process is extremely complicated or complex with bills piled up from development, and a limited supply, demand would be relatively unlimited, and prices could be high. This problem would likely be temporary though, as the tech gets streamlined. One thing to keep in mind. Every cell in our bodies can be traced back to the original life forms, billions of years ago. Some complex species are hundreds of millions of years old. A "new infusion of cells" is not necessarily the issue, because we keep reproducing over and over again and have to use at least somewhat old cells to do this sometimes. So I do think it's a cell programming issue. Our bodies evolved to reproduce - living indefinitely long is, if anything, a disadvantage to our species once we no longer reproduce, and so we did not evolve to do this. But can we? Probably, with enough tech. But unfortunately probably not in time for even the younger people on this board.
When new evidence is presented that conflicts with some people's beliefs, they reject the evidence. On the other hand, when new evidence is presented that conflicts with other people's beliefs, rather than rejecting the evidence, they change their beliefs.
