Have you run this by a trusted bio expert? When I did this test (picking a bio person who I know personally, who I think of as open-minded and fairly smart), they thought that this vaccine is pretty unlikely to be effective and that the risks in this article may be understated (e.g. food grade is lower-quality than lab grade, and it’s not obvious that inhaling food is completely safe). I don’t know enough biology to evaluate their argument, beyond my respect for them.
I’d be curious if the author, or others who are considering trying this, have applied this test.
My (fairly uninformed) estimates would be: − 10% chance that the vaccine works in the abstract − 4% chance that it works for a given LW user − 3% chance that a given LW user has an adverse reaction −12% chance at least 1 LW user has an adverse reaction
Of course, from a selfish perspective, I am happy for others to try this. In the 10% of cases where it works I will be glad to have that information. I’m more worried that some might substantially overestimate the benefit and underestimate the risks, however.
In my case, yes. My bio expert indicated that it was likely to be effective (more than 50%, but less than 90%) and that the risks were effectively zero in terms of serious complications.
Regarding the food grade versus lab grade question, as well as inaccuracies or mistakes in construction of the vaccine, this was a question I spent a reasonable amount of time on. The TL/DR is that the engineering tolerances are incredibly wide; the molecular weight of the chitosan isn’t that important, the mixing rate isn’t that important other than it be fast enough, the quantities aren’t that important, exact peptide quantities aren’t that important etc. A lot of these can be off by not just percentage points, but integer factors, and the result will still be acceptable.
It’s also worth pointing out that unless you make serious, significant mistakes that dramatically impair effectiveness, you can always just use “more dakka” to overpower the variations. My plan is to mix each batch independently, such that at least some of the construction variations are expected to cancel. (Also, freezing the final vaccine is likely to impair effectiveness, from what little I’ve found on the topic.)
I wasn’t sure what you meant by more dakka, but do you mean just increasing the dose? I don’t see why that would necessarily work—e.g. if the peptide just isn’t effective.
Not disbelieving your account, just noting that we seem to be getting pretty different outputs from the expert-checking process and it seems to be more than just small-sample noise. I’m also confused because I generally trust stuff from George Church’s group, although I’m still near the 10% probability I gave above.
I am certainly curious to see whether this does develop measurable antibodies :).
“the risks were effectively zero in terms of serious complications”
Your expert said that the risk of putting unfiltered peptide strains into your body was negligible? This claim confuses me.
Did you talk to someone who has a background in immunology, or an infectious disease specialist? (The former seems like the more important type of expertise.) And while this isn’t my area of expertise, the claim seems wrong. Having your body develop immune reactions to sequences that aren’t the full virus seems potentially really bad—because they could look like other things you don’t want your body reacting to.
You actually put unfiltered peptides into your body all the time. Pretty much any biological material you breath in (e.g. ordinary indoor dust or smelling a flower) contains some.
Yeah, putting it in your nose definitely has far fewer risks than putting it in your blood, and that greatly reduces my skepticism. But the set of peptide sequences you naturally encounter is a tiny subspace of the total space of possible proteins, and so I’m less convinced that you might not have side effects.
Also, having random peptides along with an adjuvant (which triggers an immune response) might be risky even in cases where those random peptides are otherwise completely safe.
I did not try this test. I had enough bio and physiology background to be confident in my own assessment, though I would not advise others to be similarly confident in my assessment—my background is not legible enough for that.
Have you run this by a trusted bio expert? When I did this test (picking a bio person who I know personally, who I think of as open-minded and fairly smart), they thought that this vaccine is pretty unlikely to be effective and that the risks in this article may be understated (e.g. food grade is lower-quality than lab grade, and it’s not obvious that inhaling food is completely safe). I don’t know enough biology to evaluate their argument, beyond my respect for them.
I’d be curious if the author, or others who are considering trying this, have applied this test.
My (fairly uninformed) estimates would be:
− 10% chance that the vaccine works in the abstract
− 4% chance that it works for a given LW user
− 3% chance that a given LW user has an adverse reaction
−12% chance at least 1 LW user has an adverse reaction
Of course, from a selfish perspective, I am happy for others to try this. In the 10% of cases where it works I will be glad to have that information. I’m more worried that some might substantially overestimate the benefit and underestimate the risks, however.
In my case, yes. My bio expert indicated that it was likely to be effective (more than 50%, but less than 90%) and that the risks were effectively zero in terms of serious complications.
Regarding the food grade versus lab grade question, as well as inaccuracies or mistakes in construction of the vaccine, this was a question I spent a reasonable amount of time on. The TL/DR is that the engineering tolerances are incredibly wide; the molecular weight of the chitosan isn’t that important, the mixing rate isn’t that important other than it be fast enough, the quantities aren’t that important, exact peptide quantities aren’t that important etc. A lot of these can be off by not just percentage points, but integer factors, and the result will still be acceptable.
It’s also worth pointing out that unless you make serious, significant mistakes that dramatically impair effectiveness, you can always just use “more dakka” to overpower the variations. My plan is to mix each batch independently, such that at least some of the construction variations are expected to cancel. (Also, freezing the final vaccine is likely to impair effectiveness, from what little I’ve found on the topic.)
I wasn’t sure what you meant by more dakka, but do you mean just increasing the dose? I don’t see why that would necessarily work—e.g. if the peptide just isn’t effective.
I’m confused because we seem to be getting pretty different numbers. I asked another bio friend (who is into DIY stuff) and they also seemed pretty skeptical, and Sarah Constantin seems to be as well: https://twitter.com/s_r_constantin/status/1357652836079837189.
Not disbelieving your account, just noting that we seem to be getting pretty different outputs from the expert-checking process and it seems to be more than just small-sample noise. I’m also confused because I generally trust stuff from George Church’s group, although I’m still near the 10% probability I gave above.
I am certainly curious to see whether this does develop measurable antibodies :).
Fixed twitter link
“the risks were effectively zero in terms of serious complications”
Your expert said that the risk of putting unfiltered peptide strains into your body was negligible? This claim confuses me.
Did you talk to someone who has a background in immunology, or an infectious disease specialist? (The former seems like the more important type of expertise.) And while this isn’t my area of expertise, the claim seems wrong. Having your body develop immune reactions to sequences that aren’t the full virus seems potentially really bad—because they could look like other things you don’t want your body reacting to.
You actually put unfiltered peptides into your body all the time. Pretty much any biological material you breath in (e.g. ordinary indoor dust or smelling a flower) contains some.
Yeah, putting it in your nose definitely has far fewer risks than putting it in your blood, and that greatly reduces my skepticism. But the set of peptide sequences you naturally encounter is a tiny subspace of the total space of possible proteins, and so I’m less convinced that you might not have side effects.
Also, having random peptides along with an adjuvant (which triggers an immune response) might be risky even in cases where those random peptides are otherwise completely safe.
I did not try this test. I had enough bio and physiology background to be confident in my own assessment, though I would not advise others to be similarly confident in my assessment—my background is not legible enough for that.