GentleLake Posted October 9, 2015 Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 Hmm. If this ends up being safe and effective, I wonder if they'll be able to make it available cost effectively for dogs as well. http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/lyme-disease-treatment-would-prevent-infection-researchers-say-n441946 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gcv-border Posted October 10, 2015 Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 As an ex-scientist, I am quite familiar with the approach they are trying. Good try, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. Their production strategy sounds very very expensive - thus not available to the general public. I find it laughable that the author states: "The infection is gradually spreading from the Northeast and becoming more common farther south and east,..." Seriously??? The tick problem is as bad here (Virginia) as it was when I lived in NJ. I moved here in 2006, and Lyme disease was already rampant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gideon's girl Posted October 10, 2015 Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 I live in FL where a few years ago Lyme disease was unheard of, but now some areas in FL have it and it is expected to spread to all parts of FL in the next few years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GentleLake Posted October 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 Their production strategy sounds very very expensive - thus not available to the general public. That would be very disappointing if it works. With luck maybe they can find a way to bring the cost down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliepoudrier Posted October 10, 2015 Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 That would be very disappointing if it works. With luck maybe they can find a way to bring the cost down. Sure. They'll just raise the costs on other life saving drugs astronomically and then claim that they have to do that to fund new drugs. I would like to see additional federal funding for this kind of research with the caveat that federal dollars mean that when you finally do develop a usable, useful product you have to sell it at a price that doesn't bankrupt people (or make it only truly available to the wealthy). Dreams.... J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GentleLake Posted October 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 ^^ Absolutely. What the pharmaceutical companies do with pricing just makes me sick -- pun intended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gcv-border Posted October 10, 2015 Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 I used to work on the fringes of the pharma industry, and my husband works on a product (not a pharma product) that is under the auspices of a pharma company and he has been in pricing meetings. Pricing is not based on a cost plus basis. Pricing is based on what they think the market will bear (i.e. how badly do consumers want the product). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GentleLake Posted October 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2015 ^^ Yeah. And when they're messing with people's lives -- as in cancer patients and people with seriously debilitating chronic illnesses like MS or cystic fibrosis (just saw an article the other day about a medication that might help with the latter but which is outrageously expensive) -- it's just plain wrong. There's nothing good to say about people who would be so callous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pearse Posted October 15, 2015 Report Share Posted October 15, 2015 This approach will not work to prevent infection. It may work to help clear an active infection but it won't stop subsequent infection the way a vaccination would. Antibodies injected into an animal would coat the infectious organism and allow other components to attach to the organism and destroy it. It doesn't create immunological memory. A vaccine stimulates B-lymphocytes to produce antibodies. Those B-cells stick around and have "memory" so that if they see the same organism again, they react much faster to produce antibodies. The other reason this will only work once is that if the monoclonal antibody is made in mice, the dog will see parts of the antibody as "foreign" and make dog-anti-mouse antibodies reducing the effectiveness of subsequent treatments. So this might work for an acute infection where the dog is not making its own antibodies, but it won't prevent subsequent infections and it wouldn't be cheap (big pharma aside, making monoclonal antibodies is not cheap). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz P Posted October 15, 2015 Report Share Posted October 15, 2015 FYI, Lyme disease isn't just a problem in North America. You can get it in Europe and parts of Asia too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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