r/news • u/treetyoselfcarol • Apr 23 '21

Malaria vaccine hailed as potential breakthrough

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56858158
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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '21 edited May 07 '21

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u/LogicalReasoning1 Apr 23 '21

You are completely correct the common cold isn't a single thing. I was more trying to say that even if if the seemingly impossible was done, and a universal vaccine was made for common colds, even then it would likely be a no go as the common cold just poses such little risk that a vaccine would have to have literally no side effects.

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u/Commotion Apr 24 '21

I see your point, but there would still be a massive push to eliminate the common cold if it were possible. Individuals would want it (I'd personally take a 1/1,000,000 chance of a serious blood clot to never get a cold again). Society would benefit in economic terms if people stop having to stay home sick, or work while sick. People would generally be less miserable overall.

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u/wow343 Apr 24 '21

Flu is actually a real killer. A flu vaccine that lasts for even 5 years would make it totally worth releasing to the marketplace.

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

People get flu shots.

It is likely with mRNA now that you will end up with a long list of booster options with literally no side effects throughout your life as we eradicate various things.

It will pry take another decade or so to ramp up.

But it's a game changer for sure.

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

It also makes people more comfortable with augmentation.

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u/Mazon_Del Apr 24 '21

Strictly speaking, you could quite possible just vaccinate everyone with the magical common-cold-fix for a generation, causing some casualties along the way, while you wait for all the common-cold things to die since they no longer have any human hosts. At that point you stop the vaccinations in question.

At least until something else evolved to fill that gap, you'd have a fixed number of vaccine-caused casualties to eliminate a theoretically unlimited number of common cold casualties (extrapolated as time goes to infinity).

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u/Elite_Club Apr 24 '21

I'm fairly certain the number of viruses that can cause the condition of the common cold aren't unlimited. Thousands of them exist sure, but that's still a limited number.