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[Truean]

if this is real then it's a wonder of modern science. If it's fake then it's a very cruel joke.

Can it really be real? I mean has anyone seen the actual study results? Have the results been replicated independently? Please say yes....

[ChairmanPoo]

You mean the antivirus drug? The link to the original article is in the press release.


But as it has been said already, it's too soon to guarantee anything. It's still in animal testing stage.

As for the other one, immunoadoptive therapy has been around for a while, and continues making strides. That particular one is a very early trial as well, though

[ed boy]

If the antivirals are approved, I wonder if the NHS would use them. It would cost them shedloads of money, since people would want it for even the common cold.

For the NHS to use a treatment, it has to pass QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Years) analysis. In layman's terms, there is a comittee that quantifies the effects of each medical condition one could have, and thus obtains a numerical measure for how much good that treatment does. It is then decided whether or not to fund it.

In effect, this means that it would be used for the treatments where it would be most effective (the ones that are the most easily cured, yet have the most dire effects) first, and other ones later. People would certainly want it for the common cold, but the NHS would not fund it for something so trivial.

[Eagleon]

Honestly, I think you'd have to be nuts not to fund it, even if it was just for the common cold. Yearly spending on colds amount to tens of billions of dollars per year, when you add in lost work and school plus the remedies we've invested in.

[Virex]

if this is real then it's a wonder of modern science. If it's fake then it's a very cruel joke.

Can it really be real? I mean has anyone seen the actual study results? Have the results been replicated independently? Please say yes....

Yes and no (gotta love PLoS for things like this. At first I thought it was just a curiosity, but now it seems half the medical world is publishing in it...)

[olemars]

Honestly, I think you'd have to be nuts not to fund it, even if it was just for the common cold. Yearly spending on colds amount to tens of billions of dollars per year, when you add in lost work and school plus the remedies we've invested in.

The Kleenex and Strepsils makers would lobby hard against any such move.

I'm a bit wary myself about widely applying wonder cures even to "mundane" illnesses like the common cold. Don't you risk weakening the immune system in the long run by doing that?

[Levi]

Honestly, I think you'd have to be nuts not to fund it, even if it was just for the common cold. Yearly spending on colds amount to tens of billions of dollars per year, when you add in lost work and school plus the remedies we've invested in.

The Kleenex and Strepsils makers would lobby hard against any such move.

I'm a bit wary myself about widely applying wonder cures even to "mundane" illnesses like the common cold. Don't you risk weakening the immune system in the long run by doing that?

Who needs an immune system when you can take your "Cure All (tm)" pills every day!

[Eagleon]

I'm not sure that's a reason to avoid curing an illness. You could argue the same for antibiotics, which have saved beyond countless lives. And if it's widespread enough, you could conceivably obtain herd immunity, something that's never been even remotely possible with something common and easily mutable like the flu. I'm not saying it should be done lightly, or that it's even likely that this is free from any sort of side effects or danger, but if it's safe, why the hell not exactly?

And yeah, I can see JnJ wailing and gnashing their teeth at the lost revenue already, but I wouldn't think many people would give a crap. There are plenty of other things for them to work on.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm a bit wary myself about widely applying wonder cures even to "mundane" illnesses like the common cold. Don't you risk weakening the immune system in the long run by doing that?

I think that this argument isn't a very good reason not to cure mundane illnesses. You have to understand, we're all born with an immune system of a fixed strength, the only thing that changes in response to illness is the antibody mixture in your blood. As antibodies are specialized for certain pathogens, they only work on that particular pathogen or anything genetically similar to it.

When the Native Americans were decimated by Smallpox, they had been genetically independent of the regions of the world that had smallpox for somewhere in the order of ten thousand years. That's how extreme of a divide you need to particularly weaken an immune system to a certain disorder.

While there is indeed a potential of weakening the immune system in the "long run", that's only because our immune systems will lose all effectiveness and evolutionary advantage, breeding it out by chance due to the lack of any benefit or detriment. With the kind of tactics things like DRACO would allow us to employ, a good deal of viral illnesses won't become stronger through selection, they'll just be eradicated. We already managed this with Smallpox and Rinderpest despite not having things as advanced as DRACO, so that should be an indication of how effective these things are.

[kaijyuu]

I don't think you'll have to worry about a weakening immune system. It's not like we're close to eliminating exposure to bacteria or viruses. There are plenty out there we easily adapt to without any medication or vaccines that WOULD be deadly if we didn't.

[Virex]

I don't think you'll have to worry about a weakening immune system. It's not like we're close to eliminating exposure to bacteria or viruses. There are plenty out there we easily adapt to without any medication or vaccines that WOULD be deadly if we didn't.

By the sings of it you got to be more careful with the opposite actually. There are indications that a largely sterile environment contributes to allergies.

[counting]

Using recombinant DNA and genetic engineering to produce protein based medicine isn't new or hard nowadays. Like insulin, HGH, follistim, etc are manufactured this way. As long as you have enough customers (as ChairmanPoo said it's relative), the price is determined by how many doctors actually use it, and patients need it.

And I've asked a doctor (my brother), he told me the DRACO paper is quite famous and yet somewhat just promising, not to be too excited. There are long way ahead before anything concrete enough for any doctor can prescribe it. (Or even used it for trials). The problems of durability is also a problem, a medicine must not be eliminated too fast. (something so dramatic destine to have a strong repercussion). And it will take sometime to determine its sensitivity and specificity viable for treatments.

[MaximumZero]

So, I came upon this topic at work today, and even though I don't know a damn thing about medicine, it's still fun to read.

[ChairmanPoo]

Apparently DRACO is having funding shortages.  Unfortunate.

The head researcher is fundraising. You might want to spread the news

https://riderinstitute.org

[Antioch]

Considering this wast posted 6 years ago and people are still getting viruses I take it the drug wasn't that great after all.