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I recall that Aaron Ring at Yale recently received a SOLVE award to look for autoimmunity in ME/CFS - using genetically modified yeast to produce proteins (targets to test for autoimmunity in this case). So, interesting to see the way that the technology, for identifying antigens and producing...

Interesting so you use e.g. yeast to produce the subunit, with the correct 3D structure ---- hadn't heard about moth larvae.

Wow hadn't realised that Cuba had produced a subunit vaccine - it must be quite a challenge to identify which bit of the virus to replicate i.. in the vaccine. Do they look at the targets the immune system is actually focused on and try to replicate those? Also, it must be difficult to replicate...

No one understands ME --- Chris Ponting's GWAS study (commencing next month?) might provide clues (in 6 months/year/18 months?).

Seems very complex i.e. to produce subunit vaccines but it has been done Is the time lag for producing subunit vaccines longer that mRNA vaccines, modified (adeno or whatever) live virus (Astrazenica type)?

I'm in Northern Ireland and a neighbour, who is a Doctor, has been complaining about the unvaccinated going out and getting covid and then blocking up the hospitals (unvaccinated more likely to get serious illness/need hospitalisation). Our hospitals seem to be on the brink of collapse. Noticed...

That might explain the headlines like this one "Scotland facing 'tsunami' of Omicron cases"; i.e. the scots have better data. I wonder if the figure Snow Leopard quotes corrects for the fact that a lot of cases will go undetected in England i.e. since they won't be picked up on the test...

So assuming it's doubling every 3 days (might be less) then that's roughly 5 times between now and Christmas (X32) i.e. 20K cases a day (663 X 32) and it will exceed delta (50K/day) before the new year?

Sadly the UK will probably have better data soon so the confidence levels will be much tighter. EDIT - 4 weeks?

Really just trying to flag up the issues that the use of GRADE either directly by NICE or indirectly via Cochrane (Cochrane uses GRADE) is concerning - unblinded studies, which use subjective outcome criteria being labelled as "moderate" quality evidence that an intervention works (GET, CBT...

I think South Africa had very low vaccination rates so yes unvaccinated. However, South Africa has very high natural infection rates ---- so it's a very high R rate in an preciously exposed (to natural infection) population.

Finally got around to drafting a reply* to NICE (Katy's) reply**. Grateful for your suggestions. I've plagiarised some of your quotes @Caroline Struthers ! *Me to NICE (Katy): "Regarding your comment: "Each review question in the NICE guideline has its own review protocol agreed by the...

"NICE --- confirmed details --- collaborative approach --- use of --- Cochrane reviews and the topic expertise of Cochrane review authors, groups and networks" You mean the self interested reviews, authors etc. are going to be used in developing NICE guidelines - oh dear. Also, as you...

Surely for mRNA vaccines like Pfizer the production of a poly valent vaccine is relatively straightforward. Current you take the (mRNA) code for the spike protein and wrap it in lipid nanoparticles and inject it. Injecting the (mRNA) codes for multiple spike proteins [poly valent vaccine]...

I haven't looked carefully at the data but listening to the Inside Science program on BBC Radio 4 last night my impression is the figure you quote for antibodies seems about right [EDIT - seem to recall a 40 fold reduction being referred to in the BBC program]. However, I think the questions are...

@Snow Leopard made a similar suggestion some time ago --- yea, well healed, healthy, individuals being funded to do pointless (or worse) research --- why not just give the money to the patients? I see they are still sticking to subjective outcome indicators (questionnaires). Published in the...

From the paper: "In contrast to the currently circulating Delta variant, the neutralization efficacy of vaccine-elicited sera against Omicron was severely reduced highlighting T-cell mediated immunity as essential barrier to prevent severe COVID19. Since Omicron was resistant to casirivimab and...

At least they published it --- so it can be scrutinised.

The reference to "climate" jumps out - let alone are these individuals (other words come to mind) going to solve world healthcare; they're also going to fix the climate as well. You sort of know there's no need to read any further. A long time ago, as a teenager, going through the lower tier of...

And to put the frighteners on NICE - NICE must be seriously concerned that they have a leading figure in Cochrane/GRADE going around making statements like this. I really encourage Paul Garner to keep going --- anything linking to the Lightning process is particularly helpful! If Science 4 ME...