Interesting. At first I figured the title was misleading — surely they meant an anti-Lyme disease vaccination — but it turns out that, no, they mean exactly that: anti-tick. They're training the immune system to recognize the tick saliva. This means that the immune system would recognize the bite much quicker, attack anything associated with it, and in general activate the body's innate immune system faster, leading to a faster response by the adaptive immune system.
In their trials on hamsters, none of the hamsters with the vaccine got Lyme disease, even though it wasn't a vaccine directly targeting Lyme.
> the immune system would recognize the bite much quicker, attack anything associated with it
How does this mechanism work? I once had a doctor suggest that I may have developed a food allergy due to some kind of co-exposure event. Why doesn't this happen with vaccines, for example, that anything we are exposed to the same day we get a vaccine we are at risk of developing an allergy to?
Last I heard there wasn’t a scientific answer for why some people developed food allergies like a red meat allergy after a tick based infection so that theory would be pure speculation on the doctor’s part. I’m not a doctor and this information may be old so take it with a grain of salt
The allergy is specifically to galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, a very common carbohydrate that occurs in both the meat of domesticated ungulates and the saliva of ticks, but which is not produced by primates. The idea is that tick bites initiate an exaggerated immune response, but more study is required.
There is also interesting preliminary work on mRNA for Malaria and various bigger parasites (hookworms etc), along with traditional long-term foes like HIV, RSV, herpes family, etc.
The irony is, in the United States at least, a tick-proofing vaccine would be most useful in areas where the population has a relatively dim perspective on mRNA vaccines.
> The irony is, in the United States at least, a tick-proofing vaccine would be most useful in areas where the population has a relatively dim perspective on mRNA vaccines.
In what sense? The states most affected by Lyme[0] are generally the most (COVID-19) vaccinated in the US[1]
Lime disease rates of infection and therefore risk is higher outside of cities. Of course dramatically larger populations have more cases. So you need to look at county level vaccination data which shows some dramatic difference between urban and exurban populations.
Garret county MD with a population density of 17 people per km2 is 53% vaccination for 12+ where Montgomery county MD 810/km2 is 94% for 12+.
Bedford county PA (19/km2) is 42% for 12+ where Chester county PA (274.9/km2) is 82% for 12+.
If you go outside of the urban areas in those states, you'll quickly enter many deep red areas. Take a look at where the largest outbreaks are occurring in those states, they're often the suburban and rural areas that are 45+ minutes away from urban centers.
Antivax for COVID is different, as it became a political sports contest.
Usually the groups who have low vaccination rates are more extreme religious groups. It’s usually not a big deal from a broader population perspective - the exception being measles.
Oddly we had the current President and VP also saying they’d never take a Trump vaccine[1]. So it’s truly very political for many people and not complete science based even when now they claim to adhere to science. To wit:
September 6, 2020: Kamala Harris says "I think that's going to be an issue" when asked if she would get an approved coronavirus vaccine.
July 28, 2020: Joe Biden suggests the coronavirus vaccine won't be "real" and may not be "safe."
August 6, 2020: Biden says the vaccine is "not likely to go through all the tests that needs to be and the trials that are needed to be done."
September 3, 2020: Biden asks "Who's going to take the shot? Are you going to be the first one to say sign me up?"
September 7, 2020: Biden said he would take the coronavirus vaccine "only if we knew all of what went into it."
As I recall, the context of those comments was in response to a purported attempt to fast-track any vaccine to be ready prior to the election. The Washington Post appears to have the same recollection [1].
The parent is copy/pasting from the linked press release from Trump which exclusively links to donaldtrumpcampaign.cmail20.com. They know they're arguing in bad faith.
Sure, but the lies by omission might only exist in your head. There's no way of him proving that there's no omission, which makes it look like your argument is made in bad faith.
I have the shots. People who don’t are being either political or dogmatic or whatever and a few have legit reasons. But They aren’t the only ones whose beliefs are affected by politics where politics should not be part of the equation. This is an example to show its very political on both sides.
States aren't homogeneous, though, and rural people in blue states can be extra over the top in their performative Trumpism. For example, there's a good case to be made that California Republicans are much more focused on performative Trumpism than on actually winning elections.
There’s different cohorts of trumpists. Remember that he’s a demagogue/personality cult figure, with an orbit of parasites adjacent to him.
Rural people are lowercase conservative in general, but his real power base are blue collar low information nihilists. They see his vulgarity as “straight talk”. But the man isn’t conservative.
Somebody will figure out how to divide and conquer those groups.
Ridiculous. Among others, urban residents who enjoy rural hikes and suburban residents who walk their dogs are all at risk from tick bites. I’ve personally been bitten by ticks more times than I can count, and ditto for my dog.
Edit: and yes I know how to prevent bites, but sometimes when you’re in the US South and hiking on a hot summer day you let your guard down.
It’s fun to say that, and it may be partially true, but Lyme disease is very prevalent in the Northeast United States. If you spend time outside in Connecticut, you’ll eventually find a bite in you with the tell tale circle.
Yes, uptake may not be 100%, but even in “rural” New England, vaccination rates are very high.
Vaccines do reduce transmission, via (a) reducing the chance of becoming infected in the first place and (b) reducing the average duration of the infectious period. As far as anyone can tell, this holds up for omicron, at least for boosted individuals, though it's certainly less effective at preventing infection.
Some Covid vaccines reduce transmission. And it keeps you out of the hospital, which for a human-to-human transmissible disease like Covid (and unlike Lyme’s), is a big deal.
Unless they create a coordinated campaign to oppose an already approved Lyme vaccine to such a degree that the manufacturers think it's too much of a risk to leave it on the market.
But they might require hospitalization or other medical treatment, increasing the strain on the healthcare system resulting in worse outcomes for others.
In their trials on hamsters, none of the hamsters with the vaccine got Lyme disease, even though it wasn't a vaccine directly targeting Lyme.