Poilievre wants to make it illegal to have mandated vaccinations as a condition of employment and travel. He introduced the bill last June, and a second reading in the house is currently in progress. (FYI - It has to pass through three readings in the house, then three in the senate before it reaches royal assent, so it's got a long ways to go, and private members bills often don't get through the process.) You can read what different MPs have said about it at the excellent website, Open Parliament.
But just think about it a minute: imagine going to a country with a dengue fever outbreak, as is happening now in several countries, and you don't have to be immunized for it. That's just nuts!
Bill Comeau, math prof at UW, said of Poilievre's tweet about the bill,
"As a mathematician and a follower of science, this was one of the scariest posts I have ever seen from a modern politician. The potential for exponential spread from a new future pandemic is very real. This scale of anti-science denial could potentially harm millions. . . . This bill would appear to also erase existing vaccine mandates, such as the ones that protect modern school children from a host of serious diseases."
We are moving so far backwards with this party, and too many people are climbing aboard. It's just following the Republican talking points to the letter.
In Florida, the governor recently backed up the surgeon general in "urging residents against new Covid vaccines." They're trying to make people worried because the vaccine wasn't tested on people, but on non-human primates. But, that doesn't mean they're not safe! Very similar versions of the vaccine have been tested on people and used on people with very few ill effects. If you didn't react poorly to the former versions, then you won't to this one either.
His other main talking point is that "Pharma will make more money if this thing is approved and they start pushing it on everybody." It's a familiar narrative, and does what most effective spin does: it takes a grain of truth, an authentic worry on people's minds, and generalizes it large enough so it's all encompassing and also no longer even close to the truth. Yes, Big Pharma has allowed some drug through, like oxycontin, that ended up harming some people while making others rich. But the pharmaceutical industry is massive. Most of the drugs that have been tested and used by people saved their lives. Vaccines, in particular, have saved lives. Did people make money doing the work of producing them? Absolutely. We can't all be Jonas Salk. People also make money building new hospitals, but that doesn't make it a bad thing.
Want that in more detail? Dr. Jeff Gilchrist, who has a PhD in biomedical research and explains vaccines thoroughly, has a couple threads up explaining in detail what the new Covid vaccines do and how well they work. Here are two educational threads divided by four headings in full. I bolded bit for easier skimming. My current dilemma is that my kids are seven months since their last shot, and cases are rising dramatically, so is it better to get the older version now, or wait for the new Novavax, when we have no idea if it will be available to the general population next week or by Christmas! Moderna was just approved Tuesday. So even knowing all the things, it's still a bit tricky to make decisions about the best possible scenario. Sometimes too many choices can be paralyzing!
Bottom line: any vax is better than no vax to reduce the severity of illness with a virus that continues to kill people.
All the rest of this is from Jeff:
How Novavax is Different from mRNA Vaccines:
This 2 minute video shows you how the mRNA Spikes are produced in your body.
Another big difference between Novavax and the mRNA vaccines is that Novavax uses an adjuvant called Matrix-M made from the soapbark tree to enhance the immune response to the vaccine. This adjuvant induces early activation of innate immune cells at the injection site and in the draining lymph nodes.
You can read the study to to get much more details about the mechanisms of action with Matrix-M, including interesting facts such as within 24 hours both the Spike antigens and adjuvant are undetectable at the injection site since they have already been processed and transported to the draining lymph nodes by immune cells. I wonder if that is one of the reasons why many people feel much less pain in their arms after injection compared to mRNA shots? Using Matrix-M translates into an improved magnitude and quality of the antibody response to the Spike protein (antigen) and importantly broadened recognition of locations on the Spike (epitopes). This improvement was actually seen in the real world with the BA.1 and BA.5 variants and the original Novavax vaccine formula. Both Pfizer and Moderna released bivalent BA.1/BA.5 vaccines in fall 2022 since the antibodies generated from their original mRNA vaccines could no longer neutralize these newer Omicron variants.
Novavax however did not release a bivalent vaccine because their original vaccine formula with Matrix-M still worked with the BA.1 and BA.5 variants. The Matrix-M adjuvant elicited antibodies from a broader set of locations on the Spike protein (epitopes), so even when some of the locations mutated with BA.1 and BA.5, the conserved locations could still be recognized by the immune system.
There have also been suggestions to improve mRNA vaccine potency, durability, safety and T-cell response by using adjuvants. In mice they found the adjuvant in mRNA vaccines increased antibody levels ten times and produced Fc-binding antibodies which showed better control over viral replication and help predict resolution of severed COVID-19.
Many people have anecdotally discovered and reported that Novavax doses had much lower side effects than when they received an mRNA shot. Multiple studies have now shown this to be the case as well. One preprint study (supported by Novavax) that compares the reactogenicity (frequency of side effects) of Novavax and mRNA vaccines. They found a notable difference in the percentage of reported side effect symptoms with Novavax being lower in each category: 30.8% lower muscle pain, 30.4% lower injection site pain, 25.7% lower fatigue, 25.4% lower injection site tenderness, 24.9% lower malaise, 22.4% lower swelling, 18.3% lower headache, 17.5% lower joint pain, 13% lower redness, 12% lower fever, 3.5% lower nausea/vomiting.
What about people who had mRNA doses previously but want to consider Novavax? There have been several studies now that found mixing the two, getting mRNA and then Novavax actually gave better results than just mRNA on its own. One study found that getting Novavax as a booster after mRNA "may enhance the persistence and durability of vaccine-mediated immunity compared to mRNA options" with slower decay rate compared to an mRNA booster dose and less side effects than mRNA boosters.
A randomized controlled trial found that getting a Novavax dose after Pfizer mRNA elicited the highest humoral and peak cellular immune responses. The mRNA + Novavax combination also had the lowest rate of breakthrough infections and the study also found fewer moderate and severe systemic adverse effects for Novavax than Pfizer mRNA. Neutralising antibodies against Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 were higher with Novavax after mRNA compared to two mRNA doses.
Now you have more details as to how Novavax is different and some of the nice benefits including for people who had mRNA shots previously. I'm hoping that the Matrix-M adjuvant will again show its ability to broaden the immune system's ability to choose epitopes so that it might continue to work better for upcoming variants as it did when BA.1 and BA.5 emerged.
FYI, I do not work for Novavax or have any investments or make any money from Novavax selling products. I am a little confused as to why @Novavax just recently filed their regulatory approval paperwork with Health Canada as many people are waiting for the fall boosters so it would be a shame if they were not available soon like the mRNA fall boosters are expected to be.
Vaccines are Not Enough: Additional Layers of Protection
While vaccines are important, they should be the last layer of protection to rely on in case all the other layers fail and you get exposed. Vaccines should not be the one and only layer. Governments all seem to be currently relying onASHRAE Standard 241. Control of Infectious Aerosols was released in July 2023 so this should now be adopted and required in air quality standards for buildings like governments already require clean drinking water standards for these same buildings. It is important to have good indoor air quality, not just from viruses but also for cognitive function and from other air pollutants (like wildfire smoke), which have been linked to various health problems. Aerosol and particulate matter (PM) particles can also be filtered and removed from the air using HVAC filters like MERV-13 or better, HEPA filters, build yourself CR-boxes with traditional fans or super quiet versions with PC fans. You can find guides and useful information on my website.
Since you don't have control over the air quality in most public spaces, you can also use personal filters (aka masks) with a good seal designed to protect from airborne pathogens like N95 respirators. To find out how well your mask seals, you can see my thread on fit testing and some of the test results I got comparing masks. Some people misunderstand and think filters such as HEPA and mask material work like a sieve or chain link fence which allow smaller objects like flies to pass through. This thread explains how the laws of physics are used to allow the filtering material to stop such tiny smoke and aerosol particles.
Data on Novavax and Moderna Booster Performance
While Pfizer has only put out a press releases about the lab performance of their fall boosters, Novavax has recently made their preprint study available for people to see the full details. Looking at the methodology is important as it tells you what kind of previous variant exposure the test subjects had, which helps you understand if it remotely resembles what your previous exposure experience may be.
The Novavax fall booster is based on the XBB.1.5 "Kraken" variant and testing was done on mice and non-human primates in the lab, so their results are estimates of how the updated vaccine could perform. The other thing to point out is that the tests are using pseudovirus which is an approximation of the real thing so they can be conducted in lower biosafety level labs. Pseudoviruses don't continue to replicate making them safer to study and their surface is replaced with those of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to help get insight into how it might infect cells. Unfortunately pseudoviruses can't be used to fully simulate how the virus propagates or study mechanisms which the virus uses to circumvent the body's immune system (which COVID-19 uses multiple tricks to do).
Interesting side note that researchers are required to use pseudovirus because handling the real virus is dangerous to study even in a lab. Meanwhile the real virus is routinely found spreading throughout poorly ventilated indoor public spaces like schools and offices without any safety standards in place.
Many of the scenarios that Novavax used for the updated vaccine was the test subject first getting two bivalent (original + BA.5) doses (which were never commercially available to the public) and then one updated XBB.1.5 booster. People who got one mRNA bivalent BA.5 vaccine dose which was commercially available and also infected with a BA.5 variant may have an immune exposure in the same ballpark as this scenario. Novavax included results with non-human primates were they tested a scenario with two original doses of vaccine and then a single XBB.1.5 booster which may be more likely for people who never got any kind of bivalent vaccine or Omicron COVID-19 infection. One dose of the updated Novavax booster elicits antibodies that can neutralize XBB.1.5 as expected but also XBB.1.16 "Arcturus", XBB.2.3 "Acrux" and the EG.5.1 "Eris" variant, which is currently dominant in many places.
"Importantly, the XBB.1.5 booster was immunogenic irrespective of priming regimen, as the general population includes individuals primed with diverse vaccination and infection backgrounds." In Ontario, the variant families currently circulating the most are EG.5.1 "Eris", followed by XBB.1.9 "Hyperion", XABB.1.16 "Arcturus", still some XBB.1.5 "Kraken", XBB.2.3 "Acrux" and FL.1.5.1 "Fornax". Visualization by @Mike_Honey_.
Moderna also released a preprint of their updated XBB.1.5 booster performance with pseudovirus lab test results involving humans test subjects. Their participants all received three doses of the original Moderna mRNA vaccine and then one dose of the Moderna bivalent original/BA.5 booster dose. Participants then either received a monovalent XBB.1.5 booster or a bivalent XBB.1.5/BA.5 booster with a median time of 8 months from their 4th dose. They compared blood sera immune responses just before they got their updated booster with 15 days after the updated booster. Their first set of results looked at XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 and older variants. The green bar graphs on the left are people who received a monovalent XBB.1.5 vaccine dose which is the one being made available to the public and the results to look at.While there was little neutralization activity of XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16 before the updated booster, that increased significantly after the XBB.1.5 booster dose.
Moderna also released results with newer variants using a different pseudovirus and only a subset of their participants. Similarly, the vaccine showed significantly increased neutralization levels for XBB.2.3.2, EG.5.1, FL.1.5.1 and BA.2.86 after the booster dose. Moderna found that vaccine adverse events were similar to those reported with their original and bivalent vaccines.
Immune Imprinting
A number of people have been asking if the latest variants have changed so much, do we just need one booster dose of the updated vaccine or do we need two doses to be effective? @yunlong_cao discovered people needed more than one exposure of Omicron to generate new Omicron specific memory immune cells instead of just recalling the antibodies for the original COVID-19 virus elicited by the original vaccines. For people who haven't been exposed to Omicron variants (either by infection or getting a bivalent BA.5 vaccine) may need two booster doses to produce new memory B cells targeting the updated variant. Novavax found that having two doses of bivalent vaccine instead of just the original resulted in even higher levels of neutralization for all of the latest variants since having two BA.5 exposures helped. Novavax never released a BA.5 bivalent vaccine so people would have had to be infected with one or two Omicron variants to get a similar kind of exposure. While it seems the updated Novavax and Moderna XBB.1.5 vaccines elicit antibodies that can neutralize these latest variants, it still remains to be seen what percentage of those XBB.1.5 specific antibodies become memory immune cells to be recalled for the next exposure. As @michaelzlin explains, for people who were never infected with an XBB or EG.5 variant, the XBB.1.5 booster will act like a priming event so may not be enough to protect against infection depending on the exposure level. If you then had an actual EG.5 or BA.2.86 infection after the XBB.1.5 booster, your immune system should produce antibodies rapidly enough to prevent more severe disease.
The Novavax study provides a good example of how memory B cells will recall antibodies for specific variants it has been exposed to before. The original vaccine (Prototype) on its own (image below, left side) produces antibodies with high levels of neutralization...for the original variant (first column), but low levels for XBB.1.5 (third column). Similarly on the right side, the XBB.1.5 vaccine on its own produces antibodies with low levels of neutralization for the original variant but high for XBB.1.5.
But when you had two doses of the original vaccine and then get an XBB.1.5 booster dose, the antibodies that get produced have the highest neutralization for the original (Prototype) variant because earlier memory B cells for the original variant still exist and were restimulated by the XBB.1.5 vaccine, explaining the high neutralization levels.
The antibodies are now a mixture of old and new instead of mostly being targeted to newer variants. In order for your immune system to start focusing on the newer variants and storing more memory cells specifically targeting them, @yunlong_cao 's study found you need multiple exposures. You can see the same thing in the Moderna results where the neutralization levels of the original variant (Ancestral D614G) is already high before the booster (similar to the post-booster levels of XBB.1.5) and then multiple times higher than the XBB.1.5 levels after the booster showing massive production of antibodies targeting the original variant still.
The imprinting studies have looked at infection and vaccines (but not Novavax specifically), so I'm not sure if the Matrix-M adjuvant helps encourage the immune system to create a larger amount of new XBB specific memory cells or not for people without previous exposure.
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