Poll Finds Only Half of Americans Plan to Get COVID-19 Vaccine
A recent poll conducted by the Associated Press’s NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 20 percent of Americans anticipate that a COVID-19 vaccine will be available to the public before the end of 2020, while 61 percent expect it during 2021. Only 17 percent believe it will take longer than that to develop.1 […]
New York Nursing Homes in Crisis During COVID-19 Pandemic
On Mar. 25, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an order requiring nursing homes to accept on an expedited basis all new or returning residents with confirmed or presumed COVID-19 who are discharged from the hospital after being diagnosed as medically stable. The order states: No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to […]
Inovio COVID-19 Vaccine Uses Electricity to Drive DNA Into Body Cells
Story Highlights Inovio Pharmaceuticals has started Phase 1 testing of its experimental COVID-19 DNA vaccine in healthy volunteers. The U.S. biotech firm has already produced enough of the vaccine to support Phase 1 (immune system reactivity and safety) and Phase 2 (efficacy) testing and plans to have one million doses ready for distribution by the […]
COVID-19 Meltdown and Pharma’s Big Money Win
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) told Americans on Apr. 1, 2020 that modeling reports suggested COVID-19 infections could eventually “kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans,”1 2 3 which was considerably less than the worst case 1.7 million mortality figure the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) […]
HIV Vaccine Fails Clinical Trial in South Africa
Story Highlights Another attempt to create an effective vaccine against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has been stopped early because it was not found to prevent HIV infection. It is estimated that 1,000 people are newly infected every day in South Africa. HIV virus appears to evade and destroy cells of the immune system and […]
Moderna to Use New mRNA Technology to Develop Coronavirus Vaccine
Story Highlights In light of the coronavirus outbreak, three research teams have been awarded grants by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. In a public-private partnership with NIH, Moderna, Inc. is using an experimental mRNA technology to develop a vaccine. Johnson & Johnson and other drug companies […]
Injecting TB Vaccines Into the Veins vs Reducing Poverty
The journal Nature recently reported that tuberculosis (TB) vaccine developers discovered TB vaccine is much more effective if it is injected directly into the veins of monkeys rather than into the skin. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) found that administering BCG—the […]
Quest for Universal Flu Vaccine Boosted by $200M NIH Grant to University of Maryland
Story Highlights National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the University of Maryland a contract for more than $200 million to develop a universal influenza vaccine. Currently, the influenza vaccine used around the world is developed every year by drug companies based on the “best guesses” made by public health officials at the World Health […]
NIH and Johnson & Johnson to Begin HIV Vaccine Trials on Humans
Story Highlights NIH, in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson, will begin HIV vaccine efficacy trials on humans in August 2019 in the U.S. Another HIV vaccine candidate, using a live attenuated herpes cytomegalovirus (CMV), is also nearing clinical trials in humans. There are serious safety concerns regarding live attenuated vaccines and numerous cases reported in […]
