Chlamydia Vax Soon?

[joreth]

http://www.fiercevaccines.com/story/texas-institutions-partner-merck-chlamydia-vax/2009-04-29?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Merk, the people who brought us the HPV vaccine, has now recruited researchers to work on a chlamydia vaccine.  All attempts in the past have been unsuccessful, but Merk thinks they can change that with new information from animal testing studies.

Comments

[zensidhe.livejournal.com]

How soon until congress lobbies against this because of the moral 'implications'...

Still, cool news.

[joreth]

Well, the HPV vaccine made it through, so there might be some noise about "moral implications" but I don't think it'll do anything serious about it. Plus, it'll still be several years of research and testing before it even comes before the FDA, and who knows what public opinion will be by then.

But I believe Gardasil opened the door for more social acceptance into preventative treatments for STDs. One could make a case for HIV opening the door with its huge flow of research cash (thanks to its high-visibility), but we don't have an HIV vaccine yet - HPV was the first one to get one and the cancer angle helped overrule the "moral" arguments, I think.

So I'm excited for the future! Chlamydia is, according to some sources, either the fastest-rising STD or the most common (behind HPV), I can't remember which.

Now, if the conservatives object to vaccines on moral reasons but don't manage to blockade it, well, there's an evil little voice in my head that says "good, the rest of us will get vaccinated and all of them can die sex-related deaths ... suddenly it sex *is* a punishment for immoral behaviour, just in the exact opposite direction!"

But I try to quickly hush that voice lest people think I'm mean or something :-)

[zensidhe.livejournal.com]

>there's an evil little voice in my head that says "good, the >rest of us will get vaccinated and all of them can die >sex-related deaths ... suddenly it sex *is* a punishment for >immoral behaviour, just in the exact opposite direction!"


That's a satisfying thought, but not likely. As much as they would condemn the vaccine and try to block it's distribution, I don't doubt for a second that they would be the first ones in line to get it.

[joreth]

Actually, a very large number of parents are refusing to let their daughters get vaccinated for HPV on the grounds that it'll give them permission to have sex. They're actively fighting the pressure to make the HPV vaccine part of the mandatory school vax schedule.

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure that the ones who condemn it the strongest on "moral" grounds will actually refuse it, much like the idiot anti-vaxxers - although they're afraid for completely wrong "science" reasons, not religious "moral" reasons, it's still the same breakdown in ability to logic and reason.

But no, it's not likely. Mainly because chlamydia, although incredibly prevelant, is not like the Black Plague or even HIV, with a massively high body count and it doesn't have a short enough life-span to wipe out the True Believers before they can reproduce and spread their fantasies (along with their infections).

I'm reminded of a Babylon 5 episode where this one race has an incredibly vicious viral infection that's spread by air, I think (air or contact ... either way, ridiculously easy to spread). They attach a moral cause to its spread and refuse all medical help because of it, thinking that only the pure of spirit will survive and that their god sent it as punishment for immoral behaviour.

So the race quarantines themselves (whether the individuals are sick or not), because they believe that their god will save the pure, and only the immoral will die, and part of being immoral was having too much contact with other races. Within a day or two, the entire species is completely wiped out ... totally extinct because the virus lept onto travelers and hit all pockets of this species' civilization. What made this story sad and frustrating was that the religious leaders convinced the innocent, the children, people who just didn't know any better, that they were being punished and forced them all into, what became, a death camp. Isolating only the sick ones while they worked on the cure (which they did invent) would have saved their species.

If there was a viral infection that hit only the incredibly stupid (in this case, True Believers of "moral" punishments) that was relatively easy to cure or prevent with medicine and that the True Believers refused the medicine, that would take care of things. But it's not, and that's just me at my most cynnical.