Originally published December 12 2005
Drug industry considers alternatives to bird flu vaccine
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
With time and supplies of Tamiflu running out, drug manufacturers are considering other ideas, including the dilution of vaccines with boosters to extend the current supply.
There are currently several experimental vaccines and treatments that could be pushed through in the case of a sudden pandemic.
DNA vaccines: Traditional vaccines are grown in chicken eggs, which is tortuously expensive and time-consuming.
But several experimental naked DNA vaccines, which consist of pure DNA that would be sprayed into the lungs, could be mass-produced very quickly using well-understood technology.
If a massive government-backed testing effort were put into action now, we could have enough DNA vaccine to cover every person on the planet, all for far less than the $7 billion the U.S. government will pay for conventional vaccines and antivirals.
We don't want to give people vaccines that might make them more sick than the disease we're trying to prevent," says Dunnill, and DNA vaccines should be used only if the lethality of a pandemic is high.
"If one out of a thousand who gets the disease die, it's not worth it to take risks.
RNAi: If a vaccine or antiviral drugs aren't available, another option is to silence the virus's genes inside the human cell.
A Boston-based biotechnology company called Alnylam Pharmaceuticals already has several potential RNA interference, or RNAi, treatments for H5N1 ready to be tested in humans.
And Alnylam's compounds are designed to act against a broad range of flu viruses, so they might be more effective against a rapidly mutating virus.
Using such an experimental technique on a massive scale would be very hard to approve, considering all the unknown risks.
The good news is that all past studies have shown RNAi to be a transient actor in the human body, meaning it acts by temporarily silencing genes rather than changing a person's genetic makeup.
A host of such adjuvants are exiting laboratories right now to start clinical trials soon, but it will take a decade of such trials to get them to market through the traditional route.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml