Vaccine Patches

A vaccine patch could cut out the need for painful needles and boost the effectiveness of immunisation against diseases like flu, say US researchers.
The patch has hundreds of microscopic needles which dissolve into the skin.
Tests in mice show the technology may even produce a better immune response than a conventional jab.
Writing in Nature Medicine, the team of researchers said the patch could one day enable people to vaccinate themselves.
Each patch, developed by researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, contains 100 "microneedles" which are just 0.65mm in length.

They are designed to penetrate the outer layers of skin, dissolving on contact.
To test the technology, the researchers loaded the needles with an influenza vaccine.
One group of mice received the influenza vaccine using traditional hypodermic needles and another group were vaccinated with the patch.
Patches that had no vaccine on them were applied to a third group of mice.
Three months down the line the team found the patch appeared to produce a more effective immune response in mice, then infected with the flu virus, than a standard vaccination.

www.bbc.co.uk...

I though this was an interesting advancement in medicine and could make distribution of vaccines easier and more applicable. I am holding back on my conspiracy angle here because I am learning here at ats to deny ignorance and my last thread I got a little carried away on the notion. Honestly though, I personally remain suspicious of such advances because you know, now they can medicate more of the masses for population control...right?
The patch seems more effective when compared to injection in the lab, and this advance will enable people to take the vaccine themselves. It would also make managing wide spread pandemics more manageable. This would minimize the number of sharp needles left over also.
I will leave the conjecture up to you guys on this one....

Peace

[edit on 19-7-2010 by speculativeoptimist]

If you honestly think the government is going for "population control", then why are you worried? Obviously, they are the most inept group of people in existence, as highlighted the human population's exponential annual growth.

Ahh you beat me to posting this, it's a fantastic advance. Vaccination programs have always been hindered by a mixture of cost and the skills needed to administer the medicine. These patches are truly astounding, not only may they laed to better immunity but the patches could be applied by anyone. The cost of producing them will also end up being less than needles as less material is required.

Hygiene is another important factor. Needles can be dangerousif not used properly and even if used corrctly infections can (do) happen. Needles are also reused and spread infection where these patches couldn't be reused.


I'm really excited about the future of medicine

reply to post by VneZonyDostupa

While I do think this is a milestone in medicine, and will do more good than harm, the "why am I worried part" stems from my mistrust of those that design the drugs/vaccines that will be used in this technology, and I worry about my loved ones taking certain vaccines, but that is another story/thread. You asked...and I was expressing that angle in light heartedness.

This technology is great and I hope good medicine is used with it.


[edit on 20-7-2010 by speculativeoptimist]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

I'm pretty quick on the draw!
I appreciate your enthusiasm and I agree this is pretty amazing.
Thanks for the reply!

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


I was merely making a fairly light-hearted (though not really, to be honest) joke about how absurd all these population control conspiracies are, given that the human population expands every year.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

Tests in mice show the technology may even produce a better immune response than a conventional jab.

This sounds like just more Pharma PR to me.
I thought the word 'may' was banned in scientific research


So now we have a nice safe way for the dumb ignorant masses to self administer their doses of toxic cocktails, and to poison their own children.

At least if it can be done by self, maybe the authorities will lose their tracking/certification rights and stop pestering those that just wish to say no!

Originally posted by RogerT
This sounds like just more Pharma PR to me.
I thought the word 'may' was banned in scientific research

The word may is a requirement in science. There are only a handful of situations in biological research in which you can say something "will" work, will "always" work, or will "never" work. There is always a degree of uncertainty, even if it is so small as to be negligible.

So now we have a nice safe way for the dumb ignorant masses to self administer their doses of toxic cocktails, and to poison their own children.

Why all the vitriol? Do you think the children who haven't died of polio are part of the "dumb, ignorant masses"? Do you think the children currently dying of pertussis due to lack of vaccination (a number increasing every year) are part of the smarter crowd?

At least if it can be done by self, maybe the authorities will lose their tracking/certification rights and stop pestering those that just wish to say no!

No one is pestering anyone who says no. You simply fill out a form, and that's it. At most, you might be given a short bit of advice by your child's pediatrician, but no one is going to ban your child from schools or other public venues, nor will they label you, track you, or any other event you've cooked up.

Why are some people literally salivating for bad things to occur? It's like the people here WANT some of their wild conspiracies to come true out of some perverse sense of self-gratification.

As someone who presumably chooses to vaccinate yourself and your kids, I'm sure you're pretty ignorant of the pestering. I suppose you are also referring to your particular location in the US.

I've repeatedly asked for any piece of convincing proof that any vaccine is:

1. Effective
2. Necessary
3. Safe

and in 3 years on ATS and probably more than 100 vaccine thread pages, I've yet to see a single study or piece of convincing proof.

I have been fed and read a lot of regurgitated Pharma PR and ignorant assumption though, masquerading as proof, not unlike your quote about polio children, hence the 'vitriol'.

If you'd like to post your best link that proves the above, I'd be happy to read it.

reply to post by RogerT


Smallpox and the meningitis C vaccine seem to have been rather effective. Smallpox is dead and meningitis C, at laest in the UK has dropped by over 90% since vaccination was introduced.

It's people like yourself that destroy herd immunity which ends up killing a lot of people. Drop the paranoia for once in your life, i don't trust big pharma, i think people take far to many drugs but vaccines do work.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


blahblahblah - more vaccine PR, yawn!

Are you capable of backing up those statements with some kind of convincing evidence, or do you expect me to swallow your regurgitation just because you say so?

edit to add:

Here again is what I'm asking:

Irrefutable evidence that ANY vaccine (for starters) is:

1. Effective
2. Necessary
3. Safe

Given the many, many safe, effective, proven, natural alternatives to supporting 'herd immunity' as you describe it, all 3 conditions should be met if we are injecting multiple toxic cocktails into our newborns and young children.

[edit on 20/7/10 by RogerT]

Originally posted by RogerT
reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

 

blahblahblah - more vaccine PR, yawn!

Are you capable of backing up those statements with some kind of convincing evidence, or do you expect me to swallow your regurgitation just because you say so?

edit to add:

Here again is what I'm asking:

Irrefutable evidence that ANY vaccine (for starters) is:

1. Effective
2. Necessary
3. Safe

Given the many, many safe, effective, proven, natural alternatives to supporting 'herd immunity' as you describe it, all 3 conditions should be met if we are injecting multiple toxic cocktails into our newborns and young children.

[edit on 20/7/10 by RogerT]

No matter what i say, no matter which papers i present to you, no matter what evidence is given you won't accept it. You are one of the deeply paranoid people who hate vaccines. The sad part is you think you are superior because you believe the paranoid fantasies given to you by discredited doctors and moronic celebrities, you think this makes you more informed but actually it makes you less informed. If TPTB want to kill some people than the anti vaccine movement would be a great vehicle for it.

1. Effective

Smallpox and meningitis C both dropped to almost non existent levels after aggessive vaccination was undertaken, if this isn't evidence for effectiveness i don't know what is. Further research in animals which were purposely infected proves the vaccines are effective.

2. Necessary

Thousands of people were infected and died from both smallpox and meningitis C. These are only two effective vaccines but i'll stick with them for now. They have saved countless lives (see effectiveness above) and therefore are necessary. Unless of course you don't care about people dying, then they are completely unecessary.

3. Safe

Ahh now here we have what you think is a trump card because people can (do) have reactions to vaccines, but you know people also have reactions to nuts, it doesn't mean they're unsafe. Reactions are rare and usually minor and actually this is where herd immunity comes in.

Some people just can't withstand vaccines for one reason or another and if everyone else is vaccinated they are likely to be safe as they won't encounter the pathogen. However if people like yourself refuse vaccines herd immunity is destroyed and these blameless people are at risk.

If you really want to see the effectiveness and great benefit of vaccines then look at the recent figures for measles, mumps and rubella. Since this idiotic campaign against vacccines came about (because of the research of one dishonest doctor who stood to make a lot of money from the vaccine not being used) these diseases have increased in frequency.

Oh and if you want conpsiracy you should check on the doctor who linked MMR vaccine to autism. The guy stood to make money from that, it was a direct conflict of interest, his research was horribly flawed, deliberately it seems.

You have been duped, conned, tricked and yet believe yourself more informed. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Yeah I thought not

Just more PR and assumptions coupled with some ad hom attacks and presumable some very inaccurate and unfair references to Andrew Wakefield.

Don't worry friend, nobody else on ATS has yet been able to provide a link/study etc to any convincing evidence that ANY vaccine is:

1. Effective
2. Necessary
3. Safe

If anyone does manage to show something, we can move on to discussing the many cheaper (mostly free) and more proven ways of supporting 'herd immunity', but let's see if we can get over the first hurdle first eh?

[edit on 20/7/10 by RogerT]

Originally posted by RogerT
Yeah I thought not

Just more PR and assumptions coupled with some ad hom attacks and presumable some very inaccurate and unfair references to Andrew Wakefield.

Don't worry friend, nobody else on ATS has yet been able to provide a link/study etc to any convincing evidence that ANY vaccine is:

1. Effective
2. Necessary
3. Safe

If anyone does manage to show something, we can move on to discussing the many cheaper (mostly free) and more proven ways of supporting 'herd immunity', but let's see if we can get over the first hurdle first eh?

[edit on 20/7/10 by RogerT]

Wow so instead of actually dealing with what is posted you call it false without any kind of proof and move along. As for afefield, he's a scumbag and if you actually knew what he had been up to you would think so as well. Obviously you haven't done your research as thoroughly as you believe. Even his study was biased, he shipped in kids from abroad who were already suspectedd of being autistic and then claimed they became that way after the jabs.

He's a scumbag, a conman, a liar and you have fallen for it while he made money.

The figures for smallpox and meningitis falling after vaccine are very clear, if you want a link google the top 5 results should do it if you are to lazy for that i can find them for you. However when i find them, when i find figures which show infections rates dropping like a stone after inoculation will you still deny it? If so it shows you are nothing but an extremist.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Calm down. I'm a fan of your posts normally, but I'm very limited with time and am being a little brusque because of it.

Yes, please provide evidence for what you claim. In terms of case numbers before and after vaccinations, please make sure to include the decade or two before introduction of any of the vaccines you wish to debate.

Best
RT

PS. Do you know Wakefield personally? Have you read the original studies that were posted back in the 90's and the confirmatory studies done by others? What you report is not my experience of the man? Don't want to sidetrack the thread or our mini-debate, but it seems Andy often get's a bad rap and spin prevails over reality.

reply to post by RogerT


When it comes to smallpox the figures are difficult because the vaccination technically started back in the 1800's when figures weren't exactly kept up to date. Even during the later campaign of the 1940 era the figures weren't certain but the eradication of the disease should be considered evidence. However if that is not enough i'll stick to meningitis C as the figures are clearer.

www.nelm.nhs.uk... ingococcal-vaccine/

According to figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA), there were only 13 cases of Meningitis C in 2008/09 compared to 955 in 1998/99, a decline of 99% largely due to the use of meningococcal C vaccine.

Originally posted by RogerT

PS. Do you know Wakefield personally? Have you read the original studies that were posted back in the 90's and the confirmatory studies done by others? What you report is not my experience of the man? Don't want to sidetrack the thread or our mini-debate, but it seems Andy often get's a bad rap and spin prevails over reality.

No i don't know him personally and that's actually a positive thing in this scenario as it may sway my views. Not knowing him means i can only go on his work and his work is slapdash at best. I have read the early studies and they were poorly designed and people at the time said so, sadly they were drowned out by the usual scaremongers.

He often didn't use controls, his patients were carefully selected so as to prove his already founded conviction true, everything he did was unscientific! He also relied heavily on what the parents said, noting any changes they saw in their children around the age of vaccinations. However the age at which autism is more easily detected is also the age at which vaccines are generally given for MMR. This is a coincidence. We could of course move vaccines several years down the line but then children would be at risk.

Here you may need to correct me as i haven't read the details in a while but around 1998 before the big "study" came out Wakefield received money from some lawyers who wanted to sue manufacturers who made vaccines. I think he was given around 400,000 pounds, enough to sway many people, but it doesn't stop there.

Around the same time, slightly earlier he had applied for a patent on a measles vaccine which would have been in direct competition to the MMR jab, this gives him plenty of motive to discredit the MMR jab and explains why the scumbag was so selective with the people in his studies. And yes i call him a scumbag because to pureposely manufacture the results of your study is disgusting to me.

10 of the 12 original authors retracted the paper saying it was given to much weight, One of the authors could not be reached for comment and the 12th was Wakefield.

If you want more i have more because i researched Wakefield in some depth, i don't know if a thread exists on ATS about the man and these issues and if it doesn't i'll author it.

Btw sorry if i have sounded unkind i just get very angry about this issue because when people don't vaccinate their children they don't just hurt their own child they hurt other peoples by reducing herd immunity.

I don't want to debate Wakefield, I based my decision not to Vacc. my kids on months of research a decade before I'd even heard his name.

The link you posted is broken and the quote is meaningless, regardless of the bolding. So what?

If I say the same sentence but bold the following: "decline of 99% largely due to the 2004 World Cup" it doesn't make it so, even if the evidence you posted is just as supportive of the statement.

That may be a bit obtuse, but I'm sure you get the picture.

I've done the whole before/after debate in many threads. The data clearly shows most, if not all, of the vaccinated diseases were already on the way out or rapidly declining, before any vac. was introduced. In the case of measles, one of the pro-vac pet diseases, the disease was already over 99% GONE.

Clearly, there are many factors that influence herd-immunity. IMO most important of these is sanitation, clean water, education, nutrition and general evolution of disease.

The fact is, as far as I can glean, that there has never been a study on vaccination with a control group of non-vac subjects with similar lifestyles in similar locations. Without that aspect, how can anyone conclude that vaccines played a key role, or indeed any role, in disease decline, when there are an almost infinite number of other variables.

I'm very happy to be proven wrong, but it will take more than vac. PR and 'look it's obvious isn't it' type arguments.

reply to post by RogerT


Ok so that evidence ( is evidence) won't work so we'll go with something else.


How do you explain the increasing numbers of measles and other illnesses shortly after the vaccination scare? If this trend continues and more kids are not vaccinated and this decrease of vaccine usage is directly proportional to the number of new cases will you accept this as proof?If a vaccine program is then embraced again and the disease rates go down will this be enough evidence?

What i am trying to point out here is that it seems as if the standard scientific proofs are just not enough for you despite mainstream science having many different studies both in animals and humans which prove vaccines work and despite scientists and doctors agreeing they are safe.

If vaccines don't do anything then why do labs animals subjected to the vaccine have lower infection rates and far fewer negative symptoms when exposed to the disease?

I didn't see you post any links to any scientific studies. You simply quoted standard vac. PR which every child is taught to believe at school, or every parent is taught to believe from their Doc. or from one of the mainstream media sources.

If you have evidence that measles rates are rising as a direct proportion to declining rates of vaccination, please post it - not just a few chosen quotes from some un-named media source, but the entire study, so I can check out the authors, researchers, protocol, funding institutions etc.

Simply saying 'studies have found ...' won't cut it with me, as you have already guessed I have a fairly 'healthy' skepticism of allopathy and pharma (which has IMO saved my health and the lives of one or two friends and relatives so far).

However, I'm not a complete idiot and not so pig-headed to reject common-sensical, well presented, non-biased observational data.

With respect, I'm really too tight on time to continue responding to general here-say posts on this subject. I'm very willing however to read a study and respective data if someone can find something to post, but please, just pick the best one you can find if you think there are thousands of them out there (which there really should be to justify the level and intensity of our current child and adult vaccination programs).

[edit on 20/7/10 by RogerT]

Originally posted by RogerT
I didn't see you post any links to any scientific studies. You simply quoted standard vac. PR which every child is taught to believe at school, or every parent is taught to believe from their Doc. or from one of the mainstream media sources.

If you have evidence that measles rates are rising as a direct proportion to declining rates of vaccination, please post it - not just a few chosen quotes from some un-named media source, but the entire study, so I can check out the authors, researchers, protocol, funding institutions etc.

The link above does seem to have broken and the original website isn't working only a few minutes later so sorry about that, here is another link

www.hpa.org.uk...

That's the health protection agency, it's respected and quotes figures. Now figures are figures and are used by health agencies rather than scientific studies for this kind of thing as a study wouldn't be needed when the figures are well recorded within health departments. So the figures clearly show a drop in meningitis C after vaccination.

But you wanted proof that measles rates are going up and you once again but a bit of a restriction on what you will accept. Scien doesn't really crunch figures for this kind of thing, it is left to the health departments, they are quite reliable for this kind of thing. Do you not also trust their statistics of heart disease rates, because they come from the same sources you know.

So here again is a news story about the figures, now if you simply don't trust the well researched figures because it's from a health department rather than a science journal there isn't much i can do and says more about your level of paranoia than the evidence. Sorry to be insulting but that's the truth.

news.bbc.co.uk...

[e]Measles cases in England and Wales rose by 36% in 2008, figures show.

Originally posted by RogerT
Simply saying 'studies have found ...' won't cut it with me, as you have already guessed I have a fairly 'healthy' skepticism of allopathy and pharma (which has IMO saved my health and the lives of one or two friends and relatives so far).

Skeptiscism isn't the correct word, paranoia is the correct word for how you treat this. Look i really am skeptical of claims coming from big pharma, but vaccines have a fantastic track record of eliminating and/or drastically reducing disease symptoms.

Originally posted by RogerT
However, I'm not a complete idiot and not so pig-headed to reject common-sensical, well presented, non-biased observational data.

Yet you reject well established health department figures. Do you also reject their figures for heart disease, stroke, obesity etc? Or is it only vaccine figures and disease rates relating to vaccines?

Originally posted by RogerT
With respect, I'm really too tight on time to continue responding to general here-say posts on this subject. I'm very willing however to read a study and respective data if someone can find something to post, but please, just pick the best one you can find if you think there are thousands of them out there (which there really should be to justify the level and intensity of our current child and adult vaccination programs).

[edit on 20/7/10 by RogerT]

Again, science doesn't need to bother with this issue as the figures come from hospitals, who pass them on to government departments, who then crunch the numbers. They're basically a load of accountants who just report the figures.