Let me guess: You will still need to take PrEP, because the vaccine won't be 100% effective, and you will be pressured through your dating app to do both.
> and you will be pressured through your dating app to do both
Care to explain more? Are people with HIV in dating apps required to say they are HIV-positive? I'm unfamiliar with the world of people with HIV dating online.
In Grindr there are check boxes for HIV status, an entry field for date of last HIV test, a checkbox for PrEP / Not on PrEP, and constant PrEP ads/message promos. I recently logged on after not much using the site during the pandemic, and a lot of profiles say Fully Vaxed etc although there is no checkbox as of yet. (edit: I am in a blue state with high vaccination rate)
I mention this because the vaccine debate has echoes of the PrEP debate, i.e. anyone discussing side effects of Truvada et al (even when pulled directly from Truvada website) or questioning the effectiveness of the medication, were shouted down. I think the culture is primed for exerting peer pressure to take a new mRNA vaccine (which you will still need to take PrEP with, because it will not be 100% effective).
I've never had any sexually transmitted disease. I use my brain to keep it that way, not a parade of antiviral cocktails and certainly not mRNA.
HIV vaccines have been tried and failed for decades now; why should Moderna's have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding? Simply because it's mRNA?
It actually looks like its mRNA-ness has nothing to do with it, other than making it faster to iterate and scale. Instead, their "new strategy" is to raise broadly-neutralizing antibodies (BNAbs) in patients [0], i.e. antibodies that bind highly-conserved sites on HIV's gp120 protein [1].
I'm still skeptical, and a bit disappointed. if patients sometimes generate their own BNAbs, why haven't we heard of anyone clearing the virus? there are long-term non-progressors (LTNPs) who don't need to take anti-retrovirals for 8+ years, but eventually most of these people do progress to full-blown AIDS. the virus has a completely nutso mutation rate, it'll find its way around..
..which is why HIV is treated with combination therapy (HAART.) it's harder for breakthrough mutations to defeat antivirals if you're defending on multiple fronts. it should be totally feasible for Moderna to make a polyvalent vaccine, which raises several BNAbs by including several mRNAs in a single shot.
maybe they're planning to work up to this eventually? and this Phase I is sort of an exploratory prototype?
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 17.6 ms ] threadFuck your vaccine passport.
I mention this because the vaccine debate has echoes of the PrEP debate, i.e. anyone discussing side effects of Truvada et al (even when pulled directly from Truvada website) or questioning the effectiveness of the medication, were shouted down. I think the culture is primed for exerting peer pressure to take a new mRNA vaccine (which you will still need to take PrEP with, because it will not be 100% effective).
I've never had any sexually transmitted disease. I use my brain to keep it that way, not a parade of antiviral cocktails and certainly not mRNA.
It actually looks like its mRNA-ness has nothing to do with it, other than making it faster to iterate and scale. Instead, their "new strategy" is to raise broadly-neutralizing antibodies (BNAbs) in patients [0], i.e. antibodies that bind highly-conserved sites on HIV's gp120 protein [1].
I'm still skeptical, and a bit disappointed. if patients sometimes generate their own BNAbs, why haven't we heard of anyone clearing the virus? there are long-term non-progressors (LTNPs) who don't need to take anti-retrovirals for 8+ years, but eventually most of these people do progress to full-blown AIDS. the virus has a completely nutso mutation rate, it'll find its way around..
..which is why HIV is treated with combination therapy (HAART.) it's harder for breakthrough mutations to defeat antivirals if you're defending on multiple fronts. it should be totally feasible for Moderna to make a polyvalent vaccine, which raises several BNAbs by including several mRNAs in a single shot.
maybe they're planning to work up to this eventually? and this Phase I is sort of an exploratory prototype?
0. https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/04/21/mo... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadly_neutralizing_HIV-1_ant...