Covid-19 Thread

[Swampfox]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

Had to go through what? They suffered no other side effects than having their immune system being armed to also fight HIV in addition to Covid-19. Hardly the worst of fates. Still, there are practical implications of having an immune system ready to fight HIV, it signals that you have already had an HIV infection and hence that you would test positive for HIV if tested if using test kits targeted against those specific antibodies. And that's a bit of a nuisance. Still, they are aware of this now and will simply have to use different test kits if they ever have to test if they are infected with HIV in the future.

I mean, considering all the things that can wrong in clinical trials, and have gone wrong in the passed, ending up as a false positive for HIV can hardly be considered a tragedy. For perspective, people may die when being included in clinical trials if the drug really underperforms.

If someone was told they tested positive for HIV they would be severely damaged emotionally.  You'd just shrug it off though right?

[DieselDaisy]

Pfizer's stock not rocketing right now is utterly bizarre! Must have dodgy financials.

[Swampfox]

11 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Pfizer's stock not rocketing right now is utterly bizarre! Must have dodgy financials.

Must be lack of confidence.

[DieselDaisy]

5 minutes ago, Swampfox said:

Must be lack of confidence.

It is a strange one. Utter stodge. Moderna is the sexier of the two. 

[SoulMonster]

34 minutes ago, Swampfox said:

If someone was told they tested positive for HIV they would be severely damaged emotionally.  You'd just shrug it off though right?

I am sure it has been thoroughly explained to them that the reason they now might test positive to HIV is because their immune systems have inadvertently been primed to fight HIV. 

And again, in the long list of injuries and damages occurred to people voluntarily signing up to test experimental drugs-in-development, becoming false positive to HIV comes pretty far down. 

[soon]

50 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Pfizer's stock not rocketing right now is utterly bizarre! Must have dodgy financials.

Are investors maybe into all the money Moderna is getting from the US govt? Gives them greater confidence?

[SoulMonster]

56 minutes ago, Swampfox said:

If someone was told they tested positive for HIV they would be severely damaged emotionally.  You'd just shrug it off though right?

Let's turn this around: 

You are a good guy and decides to sign up for voluntary medicine testing, knowing you will be injected with a new drug in development where the goal is to study any potential side effects. You are waiving rights knowing that shit can happen. This is an experimental drug, after all. Shit does happen. After the testing it turns out you might test falsely positive for HIV. You are being told that you don't have HIV, at all, but that now after this procedure your body behaves as if you do. Would you be "severely damaged emotionally"? 

Personally, I would indeed just shrug it off. I would know that if I ever had to be tested for HIV in the future (extremely unlikely considering the circumstances), I would just have to be tested using a kit that doesn't rely on the specific anti-HIV antibodies that my body now produces, and that except for this extremely unlikely scenario, it would have no practical implications on my life.

Edited December 14, 2020 by SoulMonster

[Swampfox]

18 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Let's turn this around: 

You are a good guy and decides to sign up for voluntary medicine testing, knowing you will be injected with a new drug in development where the goal is to study any potential side effects. You are waiving rights knowing that shit can happen. This is an experimental drug, after all. Shit does happen. After the testing it turns out you might test falsely positive for HIV. You are being told that you don't have HIV, at all, but that now after this procedure your body behaves as if you do. Would you be "severely damaged emotionally"? 

Personally, I would indeed just shrug it off. I would know that if I ever had to be tested for HIV in the future (extremely unlikely considering the circumstances), I would just have to be tested using a kit that doesn't rely on the specific anti-HIV antibodies that my body now produces, and that except for this extremely unlikely scenario, it would have no practical implications on my life.

Ok so riddle me this... You meet a nice girl and the two of you hit it off.  Before you get her into bed she tells you she had taken part in the initial covid vaccine tests.  She tells you she had tested positive for HIV but not to worry because it was just a false positive.  Would you close the deal or would you run for the hills?  

[DieselDaisy]

45 minutes ago, soon said:

Are investors maybe into all the money Moderna is getting from the US govt? Gives them greater confidence?

Haven't the foggiest. It is actually now in red!! It literally makes no sense. 

What it means is the big boys, the billionaire holding companies and hedge funds and so forth, are not touching Pfizer stock with a ten-foot barge pole. 

Edited December 14, 2020 by DieselDaisy

[SoulMonster]

4 minutes ago, Swampfox said:

Ok so riddle me this... You meet a nice girl and the two of you hit it off.  Before you get her into bed she tells you she had taken part in the initial covid vaccine tests.  She tells you she had tested positive for HIV but not to worry because it was just a false positive.  Would you close the deal or would you run for the hills?  

What a magnificent hypothetical! Why would she tell me she has tested positive for HIV at all? She hasn't tested positive for HIV. Unless she has taken an HIV test after the drug trial using the wrong testing kit. Which would be very stupid of her. Seems she doesn't really understand what has happened to her, if she were to get tested for HIV with the very method that now doesn't work on her. 

Anyway, considering that I know now of this clinical trial and presumably would correctly identify her accent as Aussie, I would certainly not be put off by her false positive HIV test but perhaps by her being so stupid.

Still, who here has been "severely damaged emotionally"? The stupid girl who can't help herself from incorrectly blurting out that she is testing positive for HIV prior to sex and hence can't get laid, or her potential suitors who might need to find someone else to fuck? I still fail to see how this anyone could be severely damaged emotionally from this, but kudos to you for apparently spending some time trying to come up with a scenario -- and assumingly discarding many even more unlikely scenarios in the process. It just doesn't convince me, though, but maybe it just takes more to damage my emotions than yours?

[Swampfox]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

What a magnificent hypothetical! Why would she tell me she has tested positive for HIV at all? She hasn't tested positive for HIV. Unless she has taken an HIV test after the drug trial using the wrong testing kit. Which would be very stupid of her. Seems she doesn't really understand what has happened to her, if she were to get tested for HIV with the very method that now doesn't work on her. 

Anyway, considering that I know now of this clinical trial and presumably would correctly identify her accent as Aussie, I would certainly not be put off by her false positive HIV test but perhaps by her being so stupid.

Still, who here has been "severely damaged emotionally"? The stupid girl who can't help herself from incorrectly blurting out that she is testing positive for HIV prior to sex and hence can't get laid, or her potential suitors who might need to find someone else to fuck? I still fail to see how this anyone could be severely damaged emotionally from this, but kudos to you for apparently spending some time trying to come up with a scenario -- and assumingly discarding many even more unlikely scenarios in the process. It just doesn't convince me, though, but maybe it just takes more to damage my emotions than yours?

I'd pass.

[SoulMonster]

Just now, Swampfox said:

I'd pass.

And that would make you "severely damaged emotionally" or are you implying that any girl you'd pass on would be "severely damaged emotionally" as the result?

[SoulMonster]

Let me recap:

There are certainly outcomes of drug testing that can leave volunteers emotionally damaged, or more likely physically damaged. All kinds of stuff can happen to the brave people who volunteer to test experimental drugs. 

But -- and this is important -- the fact that some drugs never enter the market because they fail in development (and possible scar some test subjects), has no bearing on the safety of those drugs that pass through the tests and are eventually approved. Using a failed vaccine-in-development in Australia to spread fear about approved drugs, is wrong and if done deliberately, morally reprehensible. The vaccines that make it through all the tests are as safe as we can get them at this stage, and it is paramount that as many people as possible get vaccinated so that herd immunity is achieved as soon as possible, and especially to protect all of those to whom Covid-19 is really dangerous. Refraining to take the vaccine because you have heard that some vaccines failed in development, implies that you don't understand how the drug development process works, and refraining to take it because you personally is not afraid of the disease, is a shitty thing to do.

[Dazey]

I suppose the crucial question would be how did these positive tests occur? Were they screening as part of the trial knowing that this was a possibility or did some poor fucker simply go to the clap clinic and get a nasty surprise they hadn’t bargained for?  

Edited December 14, 2020 by Dazey

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, Dazey said:

I suppose the crucial question would be how did these positive tests occur. We’re they screening as part of the trial knowing that this was a possibility or did some poor fucker simply go to the clap clinic and get a nasty surprise they hadn’t bargained for?

Heh. They knew there was a small risk that test subjects could develop antibodies against the specific HIV protein used to construct the Covid-19 vaccine, so this was tested as part of the development. Unfortunately, the CSL scientists had underestimated this possibility and it turned out test subjects did indeed develop HIV antibodies. Bummer! 

[SoulMonster]

FYI, press release from CSL regarding the termination of their Covid-19 vaccine: 20201211 Update on The University of Queensland COVID-19 vaccine (csl.com)

[Dazey]

16 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Heh. They knew there was a small risk that test subjects could develop antibodies against the specific HIV protein used to construct the Covid-19 vaccine, so this was tested as part of the development. Unfortunately, the CSL scientists had underestimated this possibility and it turned out test subjects did indeed develop HIV antibodies. Bummer! 

In that case I think it's a non issue as far as the welfare of the test subjects is concerned. If it was a known possibility and they were all counselled that this was a false positive then I'm sure they weren't unduly traumatised. It's not quite what it appeared from the headlines where it was implied some poor fucker got an HIV positive result completely out of  left field. If that was the case then I can quite agree with Swampy that it would be pretty traumatic. Funny, but traumatic.  

Edited December 14, 2020 by Dazey

[soon]

Yep, its important to consider MAGAs nonsense could be true...

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, Dazey said:

In that case I think it's a non issue as far as the welfare of the test subjects is concerned. If it was a known possibility and they were all counselled that this was a false positive then I'm sure they weren't unduly traumatised. It's not quite what it appeared from the headlines where some poor fucker got an HIV positive result completely out of  left field. If that was the case then I can quite agree with Swampy that it would be pretty traumatic. Funny, but traumatic.  

It would be pretty traumatic to you to suddenly find out you erroneously test falsely positive for HIV if some specific HIV test kits are used?

[SoulMonster]

2 hours ago, Swampfox said:

I'm in one of the first waves to get it if I choose to take it.  I'm right after the healthcare workers. 

You are both quite young and healthy - why would you be get it so early?

[Dazey]

Just now, SoulMonster said:

It would be pretty traumatic to you to suddenly find out you erroneously test falsely positive for HIV if some specific HIV test kits are used?

If I wasn't aware that there was another reason why. I'm basically saying that some of the headlines for this are implying that test subjects were told they'd had a positive HIV test without explaining the context behind it. Basically if I'd gone for for an HIV test independently of the trials after a one night stand something I'd be pretty concerned to test positive if it hadn't been explained to me that it was possible as a result of the trials.  

[Swampfox]

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

You are both quite young and healthy - why would you be get it so early?

Essential worker.

[DieselDaisy]

''I just had the Australian covid jab dearest'' seems as good an excuse as any if your wife discovers you have the bum pox.

[Dazey]

Just now, DieselDaisy said:

''I just had the Australian covid jab"

Oh god! That's getting added to the urban dictionary!  

[SoulMonster]

2 minutes ago, Dazey said:

If I wasn't aware that there was another reason why. I'm basically saying that some of the headlines for this are implying that test subjects were told they'd had a positive HIV test without explaining the context behind it. Basically if I'd gone for for an HIV test independently of the trials after a one night stand something I'd be pretty concerned to test positive if it hadn't been explained to me that it was possible as a result of the trials.  

Right. Yeah.

I am actually not certain the test subjects -- prior to the tests -- were specifically told they might develop antibodies against HIV which could result in false positives in HIV tests. But I am sure they signed some papers that listed numerous other things that could go horrendously wrong, and waived their rights. Still, I am very confident they were explained afterwards that they would now test false positively to HIV but were assured it was just a testing quirk and wouldn't mean they actually had HIV.