if it works against the h.i.v. virus, Why can't "adaptive transmissible therapies" be adopted and activated by world governments and their giant pharmaceutical companies, to stop the spread of the covid-19 variant pandemic?

======================

ADAPTIVE TRANSMISSIBLE THERAPIES: A NEW CONCEPT FOR DISEASE CONTROL

Existing measures for infectious disease control face three ‘universal’ barriers:

(i)  Deployment (e.g. reaching the highest-risk, infectious ‘superspreaders’ who drive disease circulation)

(ii)  Pathogen persistence & behavioral barriers (e.g. adherence)

(iii)  Evolution (e.g. resistance and escape)

These barriers exist because pathogens are dynamic—they mutate and transmit—while existing therapies are static, neither mutating nor transmitting.  To surmount these barriers, we have proposed a radical shift in therapeutic paradigm toward developing adaptive, dynamic therapies (Metzger et al. 2011).  Building off data-driven epidemiological models, we show that engineered molecular parasites, designed to piggyback on HIV-1, could circumvent each barrier and dramatically lower HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa as compared to established interventions. 

Above: A representative model for how a small 'core groups' of high-risk 'superspreaders' (e.g. commercial sex workers and their clients) drove the HIV-1 

epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa along the trans-Africa highway in the 1980s.  These hard-to-reach groups--often stigmatized and disenfranchised--disproportionately drive disease spread and can be described by the Pareto '80/20' rule - where 80% of new infections are driven by 20% of the population.

Above: Theoretical model of how Therapeutic Interfering Particles (TIPs) would act to reduce the burden of HIV on a population-wide scale. Small blue "pools" of infection represent a local reduction in HIV by the TIP, and are rapidly spread by a "superspreader population".

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These molecular parasites essentially steal replication and packaging resources from HIV within infected cells thereby generating Therapeutic Interfering Particles (TIPs)[1] which deprive HIV of critical replication machinery thereby reducing viremia.  The fundamental departure from conventional therapies is that TIPs are under strong evolutionary selection to maintain parasitism with HIV and will thus co-evolve with HIV, establishing a co-evolutionary ‘arms race’ (Rouzine and Weinberger, 2013).

Like Oral Polio Vaccine, (OPV)—currently used for the W.H.O. worldwide polio-eradication effort—TIPs could also transmit between individuals, a recognized benefit for OPV.  TIP transmission would occur along HIV-transmission routes (via identical risk factors), thereby overcoming behavioral issues and automatically reaching high-risk populations to limit HIV transmission even in resource-poor settings. 

For review:  Notton et al. Current Opinion in Biotechnology 2014.

HIV TIPs Executive Summary

Papers of note: Metzger, Lloyd-Smith, and Weinberger. PLoS Computational Biology 2011 (videos above) and Rouzine and Weinberger. Journal of Virology 2013 (Linked above).

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[1] TIPs are a distinct form of defective interfering particles (DIPs) engineered to have a basic reproductive ratio (R0) > 1.

How to write great News Letters.

Anna from Revue <anna@getrevue.co> Unsubscribe Sep 12, 2021, 12:16 AM (9 days ago) to me Hi there, Welcome to the Revue Email Academy! Thank you for enrolling in this five-day course. I’m delighted you chose to join me for  what I hope will be a helpful journey that results in your newsletter’s success. I’ll talk a lot over the next few days about how to make the most of the tools in Revue to make the  creation process a breeze, as well as how to promote and monetize your newsletter, but I wanted to  start with addressing something a bit broader: how do you build a newsletter creation habit in the  first place? It’s no exaggeration to say that every writer deals with this problem, so you’re in  great company. Let’s dive in. Find your niche First, we need to pin down the value you bring to your reader (Already know that?  Awesome — you can skip to the next section!). If you’re just getting started with your newsletter, now is not the time to worry about  your subscriber count. We’re used to seeing huge numbers on social media. 10,000 followers on Twitter?  1 million views on TikTok? Standard. But it’s good to realise at this point that most  newsletter audiences don’t look like that. And you don’t need them to. 1,000 engaged readers is much better than 10,000 who  never open your emails. Here’s why: They’ll be more likely to offer feedback to help you reach your target audience  better They’ll be more likely to pay for your content They’ll be more likely to spread the word With the promotion tips we’ll provide later in this course, you’ll have a great head-start  on building your subscriber base organically — but at this point, right at the  beginning, the best advice we can give you is to focus on finding something you’re  passionate about and putting it in your newsletters on a regular basis.  Even better: find your niche. You can choose any topic under the sun, but I’d  encourage you to think about the specific value you can bring to your audience.  Do you read lots of articles about a particular topic? Are you on top of the latest  trends and news? Do your friends come to you for music tips? Recipes?  Your impeccable taste in old movies? Channel that into your newsletter — and keep  tweaking until you find the right fit.  Set a rhythm One thing we know from the experience of tens of thousands of creators on Revue is  that subscribers reward consistency. If you publish, say, every Friday morning for a  few months, opening your email will become a habit for your most engaged readers. They’ll learn to expect, and eagerly anticipate, your next issue. Sure, you can throw in a bonus issue here and there when it fits your schedule (and subscribers won’t mind if you need to take a holiday once in a while!) — but it’s best to develop a rhythm. Here’s why: It’s more reader-friendly. If you send one newsletter on Monday lunchtime and the next on Friday evening, it’s harder for your readers to build a habit around opening your newsletter.  It’s more you-friendly. By committing to this structure, you’re encouraging yourself to be productive. The more you produce and share, the more you’ll learn about what resonates with your audience, and your newsletter will get even better.  You’ll be able to compare stats more effectively. If you start with a baseline send time (eg. Friday at 9am), you reduce the variables that could be affecting your engagement stats.  Find a time of day, or a day in the week, that works best for you. Grab a hot drink (or a glass of wine, don’t let us hold you back), turn off distractions, and dedicate some time to your newsletter draft.  Start writing If you take away one piece of advice from this email, I’d want it to be this: Don’t wait for the perfect conditions to get started.  You’ll learn far more by trying things out and iterating than by spending lots of time getting your ducks in a row. An added bonus to this approach is that your readers will come along with you on your journey, and you’ll build a feeling of loyalty among those who have been with you from the start, before you honed your perfect newsletter machine. Email is a personal medium, so it’s great to get comfortable addressing your subscribers as friends — and even asking them for help along the way.  And on top of that, pressing ‘Send’ becomes much less daunting the more you do it.  I’ll be back in touch tomorrow with some practical tips on making the most of Revue’s tools. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Just reply to this email and a member of our team will get back to you as soon as possible.  I’ll see you tomorrow! All the best, Anna If you’d like to unsubscribe from the rest of the Revue Email Academy, you can do so here. We'll keep the emailing to a minimum, promise. If you still want to opt out, you can unsubscribe here.

Baby Genius Training!

GENTLE NEW PARENTS:

 I SPENT YEARS IN COLLEGE LEARNING  INTERESTING FACTS ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND THEY ARE STILL VALID TODAY. I TRUST SOME YOUNG PARENTS OUT THERE MIGHT FIND THE FOLLOWING FACTS INTERESTING AND SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO HERE ARE WONDERFUL AND ILLUMINATING RULES FOR HELPING YOUR CHILD BECOME A GENIUS.

RULE NUMBER 1.    FOR ALL YOU NEW MOTHERS OUT THERE, UNLESS YOUR DOCTOR SAYS OTHERWISE, ALWAYS BREAST FEED YOUR BABY. YOUR HUMAN MILK IS BETTER THAN COW MILK AND YOUR MILK CONTAINS HORMONES AND VITAMINS SPECIFIC TO YOUR BABY.

 RULE NUMBER 2.   TRUST YOURSELF BECAUSE AS A MOM  YOU ARE THE RESPONSIBLE AND DIRECT ROLE MODEL FOR YOUR BABY, AND YOUR BABY NEEDS PLENTY OF STIMULATION AND SKIN TO SKIN INTERACTION DURING THE FIRST SIX MONTHS.                 

RULE NUMBER 3..     AS HE OR SHE GROWS OLDER, TRUST YOUR CHILD'S ABILITY TO LEARN BOTH WITH YOU AND INDEPENDENTLY OF YOU. 

RULE NUMBER 4.     GIVE ONLY HONEST DETAILS AND FACTS TO YOUR CHILD AND MAKE THEM FUN! HERE IS WHERE DAD COULD HELP WITH PLAY TEACHING.

RULE NUMBER 5.    WHEN PLAY TEACHING, GIVE ALL FACTS AND INFORMATION IN SMALL EASY TO UNDERSTAND  STRESS FREE PORTIONS AND DON'T FORCE YOUR CHILD TO LEARN ANYTHING. IT IS FUN AND ADVISABLE TO PLACE MUSICAL NOTES AND MATH NUMBERS AND COLOURFUL LETTERS ON YOUR BABY'S  ROOM WALLS. 

RULE NUMBER 6.    BABIES HAVE SHORT ATTENTION SPANS AND SO STOP YOUR PLAY TEACHING WHEN BABY DECIDES HE OR SHE HAS HAD ENOUGH.

RULE NUMBER 7.    HUMAN BABIES NEED PLENTY OF EXERCISE DURING THEIR FIRST AND SECOND YEAR OF LIFE AND SO A LARGE ROOM FILLED WITH SOFT TOYS IS BETTER THAN A PLAY PEN. BABIES LIKE TO CRAWL AND EXPLORE AND THAT  STIMULATES THEIR BIO-ELECTRICAL TRIGGERS IN THEIR HEART MUSCLES.

RULE NUMBER 8.    ALWAYS PUT YOUR NEW BABY TO SLEEP ON HIS BACK TO AVOID CRIB DEATH BY SUFFOCATION. YOU CAN ALWAYS AVOID THE CRIB ALTOGETHER WITH A LARGE ROOM. SING GENTLY OR PLAY SOFT MUSIC TO HELP YOUR BABY SLEEP.

RULE NUMBER 9.  EVERY NEW THING A BABY LEARNS SHOULD BE REWARDED WITH A LAUGH OR A SMILE. IF BABY IS DOING SOMETHING WRONG, A FROWN WITH A NEGATIVE NOD OF THE HEAD SENDS THE INSTINCTIVE AND UNIVERSAL SIGNAL TO STOP.  BABIES CAN LEARN THE SOUNDS OF THREE OR FOUR LANGUAGES BEFORE THEY FULLY UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF WORDS.

RULE NUMBER 10.  ALWAYS ASSOCIATE PLEASING AND HAPPY FEELINGS WITH EACH STEP OF THE LEARNING PROCESS. THE MORE HAPPY ASSOCIATIONS MATCHED WITH REALITY, THE BETTER!

RULE NUMBER 11.  MAKE LEARNING NEW THINGS EASY AND ENJOYABLE UNTIL THE PROCESS BECOMES SELF ACTIVATED. 

GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN WITH BABY!

N.J.R.

From the Wallstreet Journal. Why Covid 19 shots don't last a lifetime.

Some Vaccines Last a Lifetime. Here’s Why Covid-19 Shots Don’t.

Researchers have calculated a key number—the threshold of protection—for other vaccines. Covid-19’s is still a mystery.

Why don’t Covid-19 vaccinations last longer?

Measles shots are good for life, chickenpox immunizations protect for 10 to 20 years, and tetanus jabs last a decade or more. But U.S. officials are weighing whether to authorize Covid-19 boosters for vaccinated adults as soon as six months after the initial inoculation.

The goal of a vaccine is to provide the protection afforded by natural infection, but without the risk of serious illness or death.

“A really good vaccine makes it so someone does not get infected even if they are exposed to the virus,” said Rustom Antia, a biology professor at Emory University who studies immune responses. “But not all vaccines are ideal.”

The three tiers of defense, he said, include full protection against infection and transmission; protection against serious illness and transmission; or protection against serious illness only.

The effectiveness depends on the magnitude of the immune response a vaccine induces, how fast the resulting antibodies decay, whether the virus or bacteria tend to mutate, and the location of the infection.

The threshold of protection is the level of immunity that’s sufficient to keep from getting sick. For every bug, it’s different, and even how it’s determined varies.

“Basically, it’s levels of antibodies or neutralizing antibodies per milliliter of blood,” said Mark Slifka, a professor at Oregon Health & Science University.

(T-cells also contribute to protection, but antibodies are easier to measure.)

A threshold 0.01 international units per milliliter was confirmed for tetanus in 1942 when a pair of German researchers intentionally exposed themselves to the toxin to test the findings of previous animal studies.

“One of them gave himself two lethal doses of tetanus in his thigh, and monitored how well it went,” Dr. Slifka said. “His co-author did three lethal doses.”

Neither got sick.

A threshold for measles was pinned down in 1985 after a college dorm was exposed to the disease shortly after a blood drive. Researchers checked antibody concentrations in the students’ blood donations and identified 0.02 international units per milliliter as the level needed to prevent infection.

With these diseases, the magnitudes of response to the vaccines combined with the antibodies’ rates of decay produce durable immune responses: Measles antibodies decay slowly. Tetanus antibodies decay more quickly, but the vaccine causes the body to produce far more than it needs, offsetting the decline.

“We’re fortunate with tetanus, diphtheria, measles and vaccinia,” Dr. Slifka said. “We have identified what the threshold of protection is. You track antibody decline over time, and if you know the threshold of protection, you can calculate durability of protection. With Covid, we don’t know.”

Historically, the most effective vaccines have used replicating viruses, which essentially elicit lifelong immunity. 

Measles and chickenpox vaccines use replicating viruses.

Non-replicating vaccines and protein-based vaccines (such as the one for tetanus) don’t last as long, but their effectiveness can be enhanced with the addition of an adjuvant—a substance that enhances the magnitude of the response.

Tetanus and hepatitis A vaccines use an adjuvant.

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T he Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines use non-replicating adenovirus and don’t contain an adjuvant. The Pfizer and Moderna messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccines, which work differently, don’t contain any virus at all.  

Complicating things further, viruses and bacteria that mutate to escape the body’s immune response are harder to control.

Measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox hardly mutate at all, but at least eight variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, have been found, according to the British Medical Journal.  

“It does make it more complicated for the vaccine to work,” Dr. Slifka said. “You’re chasing multiple targets over time. Flu also mutates. With flu, we’ve adjusted by making a new flu vaccine each year that as closely as possible matches the new strain of flu.”

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F lu vaccines can offer protection for at least six months.

Setting aside the complexities of crafting an effective vaccine to combat a shape-shifting virus, some hope has revolved around the possibility of defeating Covid-19 by achieving herd immunity, but, according to Dr. Antia, the way coronaviruses infect the body makes that challenging.

“Vaccines are very unlikely to lead to long-lasting herd immunity for many respiratory infections,” Dr. Antia said. “The herd immunity only lasts for a modest period of time. It depends on how fast the virus changes. It depends on how fast the immunity wanes.”

Part of the problem is that coronaviruses replicate in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts.

“We have good circulation in our lungs and body, but not on the surfaces of our nostrils,” Dr. Slifka said. “We can block severe disease because there are antibodies in the lower respiratory tract.”

But the risk of low-level infections in the upper respiratory tract can persist.

Moving forward, Covid-19 vaccines will be updated to combat variants of the virus, and according to researchers at Imperial College London, the next generation of vaccines might also focus on enhancing immunity in the moist surfaces of the nose and lungs.

In the meantime, avoiding the slippery virus might require another shot.

Covid-19 Vaccines

Related coverage, selected by the editors

What to Know About Biden's Vaccine Mandate

• HERE IS A GOOD QUESTION?
• -----------------------------------------
• WHICH COUNTRIES ARE BUYING BRAZILIAN BEEF AND/OR BRAZILIAN SOY PRODUCTS AND CONTRIBUTING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON RAIN FOREST?

   IT CAN'T BE FRANCE BECAUSE IN 2017, FRANCE CREATED A POLICY TO STOP IMPORTING PRODUCTS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO DEFORESTATION. THE QUESTION CONTINUES TO BE WHICH COUNTRIES DO NOT CARE IF THE LUNGS OF THE WORLD ARE DESTROYED?

THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT ACTION PLAN...

• "Harness agriculture: efforts will get underway to transform our agricultural systems with a view to curtailing emissions and improving the capture and storage of carbon in the ground.
• Adapt to climate change: a new National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change (PNACC) will be unveiled to provide French citizens with more effective protection against extreme weather events and to build resilience among the main economic sectors so that they can better withstand climate change.
• Stop importing products that contribute to deforestation: imports of products that are bringing about the destruction of the world's three major tropical rainforests (Amazonia, South-East Asia and Congo Basin) will be swiftly brought to a halt."

GOOD IDEAS!

 HERE ARE A FEW MORE GOOD IDEAS!!

INTERNATIONAL LABORATORIES CAN NOW RENDER DANGEROUS CORONA VIRUS SUCH AS COVID-19...HARMLESS!  THE COMMON COLD IS ALSO A CORONA VIRUS AND IT IS A MONEY MAKER FOR PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES BECAUSE IT IS NON-LETHAL. 

BLOCKING THE SYMPTOMS OF THE COMMON COLD IS GREAT FOR BUSINESS BUT WHEN IT COMES TO CURING THE COMMON COLD,  THAT IS NOT SO GREAT FOR THE PRODUCERS OF ASPIRIN AND TYLENOL AND ADVIL...ETC. BIG PHARMA IS FUNNELLING IN BILLIONS BY SIMPLY BLOCKING THE SYMPTOMS AND ALLOWING THE VIRUS TO SURVIVE.

  1. BLOCKING THE SYMPTOMS OF THE COMMON COLD VIRUS IS A MULTI MILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY.  THE COLD VIRUS HAS A ROUND CORONA SHAPE AND IS PART OF THE CORONA FAMILY AND FOR DECADES THE COMMON COLD WITH IT'S  MORE SERIOUS COUSIN, THE FLU, HAVE HELPED TO CREATE AN EXTREMELY LUCRATIVE BUSINESS FOR THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES.

2. AS THEY ARE FOR THE MOST PART NON LETHAL, THE COLD AND FLU VIRUS MAY OR MAY NOT BE PROTECTED FROM COMPLETE DESTRUCTION BY THE SAME COMPANIES NOW PRODUCING VACCINES FOR THEIR  MORE LETHAL COUSIN, THE COVID-19 VIRUS. 

3.. A FEW IMPORTANT LABORATORIES AND THEIR GOVERNMENT SPONSORS ARE THREATENING THE ECONOMIC STABILITY OF MANY "SYMPTOM" BLOCKING COMPANIES  BY CREATING AN HONEST AND ABSOLUTE CURE FOR THE COMMON COLD ALONG WITH ALL OF IT'S CORONA COUSINS, INCLUDING COVID 19. 

 4. TODAY,  LABORATORY RESEARCHERS ARE USING CRISPR-CAS 9 TO TRANSFORM DEADLY VIRUS INTO BENIGN LIFE SAVING VIRUS. NEW VACCINES AND GENETIC MODIFICATION METHODS ARE NOW EFFECTIVELY PROVIDING PROTECTION AGAINST COVID-19 AND THE FLU AND THE COLD VIRUS, 

PROTECTING AGAINST "CORONA" VIRUSES.

ALONG WITH VACCINES, LABORATORY RESEARCHERS HAVE DISCOVERED WAYS AND METHODS SUCH AS "CRISPER-CAS 9"  AND "TIPS" TO ALTER THE GENES OF DANGEROUS VIRUS IN ORDER TO RENDER THE  CORONA VIRUS MUTE.  OF COURSE THESE DISCOVERIES WILL FINANCIALLY ENDANGER COMPANIES PRODUCING SYMPTOM BLOCKING AND CASH MAKING PRODUCTS LIKE: ASPIRIN, TYLENOL ADVIL...ETC.

CONCLUSION: Scientific breakthroughs are creating a future without deadly diseases.

N.J.R.