This story ("Scientists close to neutralizing all flu types") continues to circulate and frankly, I don't understand why.
British scientists believe they are close to finding a way to stop all flu viruses --including the deadly H5N1 virus, known as the bird flu.Researchers at Warwick University say they have found a way to turn the flu virus against itself.
Although the research is still in its preliminary stage, the results are a source of optimism for the medical community concerned about the global spread of bird flu.
"We're very close. The lab data are as good as they can be. It works very, very well in the lab," Professor Nigel Dimmock told CTV News.
This is legitimate science, all right. It has been for three decades or more, when the existence of Defective Interfering (DI) viruses was first described.
DI viruses may exist for almost every virus, although it is in the RNA viruses like influenza they have been best studied. DI viruses evolve naturally from the wild types and have incomplete genetic material (partial genomes). What they have is sufficient to allow them to enter a host cell but not to replicate. When a fully competent wild type virus does infect the cell, the DI virus uses the additional genetic components of that virus and replicates faster than the newly infecting virus, thus "out competing" it. Dimmock and his co-workers at Warwick have been studying this for many years and have reported a DI virus that works in animals and seems (counterintuitively) to be more effective against more potent viruses (they say "more virulent" but it sounds as if they mean viruses that infect at lower doses, which is infectiousness, not virulence; abstract of their paper here).
The idea is that by previously infecting cells with a DI influenza virus, it would protect against any other subtype or strain as long as it supplied the missing genetic material. Good idea, but it has a long way to go and there are many possible obstacles along the way:
"We're very close. The lab data are as good as they can be. It works very, very well in the lab," Professor Nigel Dimmock told CTV News.
[snip]
However, experts stress much more testing is required.
"The limitation is that experiments have only been done with mice," Canadian infectious disease expert Dr. Neil Rau told CTV News.
"We also don't know how long this immunity that has been demonstrated in mice, against challenges with different types of virus, how long it lasts."
In fact the situation might be worse than just failure to test in humans. As far back as 1994, Kirkwood and Bangham raised theoretical questions (.pdf) about the technique. In particular, they note that a simple mathematical model is able to explain all the features of DI dynamics and the models display characteristic features of deterministic chaos, in particular, sensitivity to initial conditions, making the outcomes inherently unpredictable. Moreover, since DI mutants arise spontaneously, so do escape mutants and DI viruses to those escape mutants, and so on. The authors point out that the new DI mutants could interfere with the parent DI mutants.
The bottom line here is that this technique may very well work and it is reasonable it be vigorously pursued. But we are a long way away from having a lot of confidence it will work and even farther from being able to employ it. The idea that this is development is "close" is not true.
So why all the stories? I remain puzzled but maybe this is a clue:
The Warwick team says it has gone as far as it can in the lab and is trying to raise money for the next step.
"I think the thing is to do the test in people, then we'll know whether it works or not," Dimmock said. (CTV)
Hmmm.
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well, I'm sure they are trying to get funding, which is perfectly legit from where they are. What annoys me is the media choosing to run these stories.
I think there is a tremendous bias in the UK for 'feel good' stories or possible breakthroughs to deal with a pandemic, but not if you want to raise difficult issues.
We wrote to newspapers about statins and that got published, but we wrote to newspapers about holes in the government's pandemic plans and you might as well have sent them to a black hole.
URGH!
"The bottom line here is that this technique may
very well work and it is reasonable it be vigorously pursued. But we are a long way away from having a
lot of confidence it will work and even farther from being able to employ it. The idea that this is development is "close" is not true."
sorry, I don't understand the bottom line.
How likely do you think it will work ?
Can you give a number for your probability estimate ?
From what you write, I guess it's 50% ?!?
anon: How could I possibly give a plausible estimate? What's your estimate that Putin will solve Chechnya in 5 years? And why should I pay any attention to your estimate if you give me one?
20%
you shouldn't, since I have little expertise about Chechnya
revere:How could you write such a bottom line when you
have no clue whatsoever how likely you consider it ?
If you have some clue, then why don't you communicate it in a way that we can understand it ?
I'd really like to know what approximately the chances
are that this will work. And I'm sure, your estimate is worth more than my own.
Dimmock lists Webster as collobarator:
http://www.bio.warwick.ac.uk/res/frame.asp?ID=7
they need 5 million pounds and no government or drug
company is interested. I wonder why.
When there were only a 1% chance of success, they would probably spend the money, since the benefit would be
in the billions, I assume.
http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_headline=we…
Yes, the UK is the champion of feel good stories - much more so than the US, which tends to be more tempered and often present 'downsides', 'criticism' or 'questions', in view of appearing 'balanced' and 'expert.' (Often none of it makes any sense at all, just talking reporting style.) It is the sign, perhaps, of a slightly more open environment and a hang over of Britannia Rules the Waves!
Grains of salt are liberally thrown about, the media is not considered to be as trustworthy as in the US.
Grains of salt are liberally thrown about, the media is not considered to be as trustworthy as in the US.
Wow. That's mind-boggling, because I really didn't think it was possible to sink any lower than U.S. corporate media do.
Are you restricting your criticism to UK science reportage? I find that political news is generally better reported in the UK than here.
Maybe they can continue down this path after we get out of the 'dark ages' with the antivirals and vaccines.
It's a three step program.
First they have to accept the fact that both don't work...
...then they need to invest in some research (research program funds were turned down for an antiviral research program two years ago)...
...and then they have to come up with a technology to produce vaccines that doesn't involve the 1920 technology of growing the antigen in chicken eggs.
Yes, the UK is the champion of feel good stories - much more so than the US, which tends to be more tempered and often present 'downsides', 'criticism' or 'questions', in view of appearing 'balanced' and 'expert.' (Often none of it makes any sense at all, just talking reporting style.)
I have heard this bias credited, by expats, to the idea that Britannia is still a monarchy-based society, whereas America is full of those whose ancestors barely escaped some version of The Received Wisdom with their lives. Conversely, I have heard this same feel-good bias credited (by other expats) to the fact that Britains are basically sensible of the March of Progress, while a persistent ever-vocal minority of Americans believe that "progress", much less "science", is literally the work of Satan and his spawn. Possibly both arguments are correct .
Tom I think the message is becoming clear to Big Pharma. Dont wait on the government (we all got that one from Katrina) for funding. If they wait and this mother gets out and running I think they have figured it out that they are going to be short one helluva lot of customers.
US media sucks, in the rest of the world its varying degrees of suck. A.L. has done a good job of rumpling them up because she calls a spade a spade. I dont agree with a lot of what she says but overall a good, good job of scaring the shit out of them.
I have watched some of the Pharma budgets for R and D and where they are putting their bucks. They have done a hard turn apparently on the megabucks that Roche was making on Tamiflu. They next one is likely to be some sort of Tylenol Cold and Flu that works minimally. But hey if it works at all they stand to make a killing, else H5 makes a killing. Time is starting to shorten and A.L. should be commended for sending up the smoke signals a long time ago.
I think she should move into videos though that we can plop in front of Senators. It took a trip to Memphis to visit Webster to make Frist start to push hard and he hasnt stopped since. A.L. should really work to get a one hour on Discovery or N.G. Channel and just do what she does best. Interview and report... Just the facts ma'am. The truth is a lot more scary that we could ever make it.
Wes Craven could be the editor.
Randolph. This may seem like a dumb question but who is A.L.?
I am British and UK resident but I note the story came from CTV, as I had never heard of them I followed the link at the end of the story to see who they were. They appear to be Canadian but thier web address was CTV.ca is that California?
I am not a big fan of any of the MSM repoting but the Gaurdian online and the international edition of the BBC site are OK for screening what they think are news but if you really what to know something you have to work and follow it back to their source and make up your own mind. Most 'news' these days seems to be someones opinion on an 'experts' opinion on someone elses data.
JJ,
.ca stands for Canada.