Last week, I heard a microbiologist claim that his team is close to perfecting a genetically manipulated combination vaccine which would be given to children shortly after birth to prevent malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

Who wants their child to be the first recipient?

Do you have a link for us?

Where did you hear that? Afaik a possible vaccine for malaria is scheduled for a few years in the future and it is extremely unlikely that a possible vaccine against HIV would go unnoticed.
So unless sources are provided I assume this to be a hoax.

Do you have a link for us?

I spoke with the lead investigator... An article is being published at the end of this month in one of the well-known scientific journals... I'll get the name of it for you...

Where did you hear that? Afaik a possible vaccine for malaria is scheduled for a few years in the future and it is extremely unlikely that a possible vaccine against HIV would go unnoticed.
So unless sources are provided I assume this to be a hoax.

It's not a hoax... I'll get the name of the publication...

It's a good hypothetical question even if it turns out not to be germaine to today's reality. Who really would want to go first?

When we learn that some of the earliest remedies of the era of "modern medicine" have dire side effects in some people, and we realize the fallibility of all the testing that's done to bring a medicine to market, we have to do a risk analysis to decide which individuals have the highest probability of a statistical improvement in health by being in the beta or gamma test group.

Malaria and TB are vanishingly small risks in the "developed" world and also have a high recovery rate here. I would not volunteer my child (if I had one) for a preventive. I'd probably wait and let my grandchild be in the delta test group 25 years later.

But HIV...? If it were a single-purpose vaccine, I'd be more tempted. But the broader the range of a medication, the scarier it becomes. The more different its way of doing its job, the scarier it becomes--and an HIV vaccine will be much different from those we're familiar with.

That's a tough risk analysis. For parents in the communities that have been ravaged by HIV, it should be a no-brainer. But one of the reasons HIV is rampant in those communities is precisely that there's a considerable lack of common sense when it comes to health and they might be the least likely to come forth.

I don't know what I'd do. The devil is in the details and I'd have to be much better informed to make a decision.

Sounds pretty sketchy to me.
What do the three have in common that would make it worth a triple-shot?
A parasite.
A bacteria.
And a virus.

Nah.
I'll have to wait to see the paper published to even come close to believing this one.


As an aside. Although the triplet seems rather far-fetched as a vaccine cocktail, it does seem to have all the makings of a successful sitcom.

Who'll play the kooky neighbor?

I would like to know how people could possibly expect a single vaccine to prevent attacks from a virus, a parasite and] a bacteria all in one shot, when there are no real successful preventative treatments for the virus and the parasite individually (and, iirc, super-TB is giving a lot of people trouble due to its resistance to antibiotics, although rare). There have been a lot of medications attempting to control malaria, but none have succeeded. There is continuing research on how to control HIV with a vaccine -- to date none have succeeded. How are we going to fight them both with a single vaccine?

Am I missing something?

Ha ha. Beat you to it.


I think Stewie would make a great kooky neighbor. It could be marketed as a Family Guy spinoff and thus have a ready to go audience.

http://www.sciforums.com/avatars/avatar8528_1.gif

Ah. And an excellent time to bring back Stewie's sperm brother, Bertram.
Yes!!!

http://www.planet-familyguy.com/pfg/images/characters/sperm_brother_tn.jpg


Edit:

No. NO. Forget Stewie. He can be just used as the segue.
The kooky neighbor will be Bertram.
Peter must then get infected with the triple combo.
Hiv.
Malaria.
And Tuberculosis.

YES!!!!

By a minute invert. Dang.

Regarding malaria, I think there was some vaccine in the pipeline. At least I think I read something about it ~2 years ago. Anyhow, regardless if there is really such a vaccine (which I find rather doubtful, as already mentioned) it has to be a mixed vaccine like e.g. the diphteria/tetanus combo.
Especially with regards to HIV this is highly unlikely as the the mutability of its surface structure is still one of the main problems in designing a vaccine.

The only issue with comparing the potential 'triple play' and the diphtheria/tetanus vaccine is that diphtheria and tetanus are both bacterial infections, and can thus be treated in a similar fashion.

Treating a parasite, a bacteria and a viral infection all at once is so much more difficult that at this stage in our research it is impossible.

Well, as far as I understood it wasn't to be a treatment but a vaccination. So essentially in all cases the body is exposed to an antigen (regardless of prokaryotic, eukaryotic or viral origin).

Clearly if such a vacine exists, it is meant for the third world where these conditions are ravaging the population. That's where it will/would be used.

Here is an article from 2004 on topic:

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/daids/vaccine/pdf/Jacobs.pdf

I spoke with the lead investigator... An article is being published at the end of this month in one of the well-known scientific journals... I'll get the name of it for you...
For the record: Your link was not to a published article in a well-known scientific journal. It was a PDF of a PowerPoint display.

For the record: Your link was not to a published article in a well-known scientific journal. It was a PDF of a PowerPoint display.

Hi Hercules,

Correct. The publication is forthcoming. The link I provided was from a presentation given at a workshop in October of 2005. The full content of the article on the workshop can be found at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/daids/vaccine/novel_vaccines.htm

The particular presentation on topic is the first listed under Session 3.