Rumor has it we can use our own body to cure our illnesses. Well that’s kind of what our immune system is right? Antibody therapy might be the way to make our immune system work a little better, and a little faster, by making “synthetic” antibodies (aka we didn’t produce it ourselves) that will fight off any unwanted antigens. Scientists replicate our immune cells, creating the monoclonal antibody that is used to protect our bodies from infection. One specific monoclonal antibody is adalimumab, a drug that works against Psoriatic arthritis, Ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn’s disease, and Plaque psoriasis.

Adalimumab is considered a “tumor necrosis factor” inhibitor. What is this TNF you may ask? Well, it is a cytokine, which is a protein that works to signal cells in our body. The TFN induces our bodies natural remedies of inflammation when something is going wrong, working with “cell survival, proliferation, differentiation, and death”. So the commonality in all of the diseases I mentioned above, is that they all are inflammatory conditions, which is what Adalimumab is helping to eliminate. Because it prevents inflammation, it is dealing with our adaptive immune responses. It seems pretty great, right? Well, all drugs have side effects. So when you’re deciding to use this one, maybe decide after you know that it may lead to:

• Serious infection
• HBV if you are a carrier
• Allergic reactions: hives, swelling, breathing issues
• Nervous system reactions: vision issues, tingling, weakness, dizziness
• Decreased blood cells which fight infection
• Heart failure
• Immune reactions
• Liver problems
• Psoriasis

So it is supposed to eliminate psoriasis, but it psoriasis is also a side effect? That doesn’t seem right. Along with all those side effects, WITHOUT any underlying conditions. It may be a drug that is just out of the question if you have, well, any health conditions. If you have any sort of infection, you probably shouldn’t use the drug. It’ll lead to even more infections. Even living in certain areas of America increases your chance of complications. Obviously, if you’re allergic to any ingredients in the medication, don’t take it. Pregnant ladies, out of the question for you. If you have TB, or have any risk of getting TB, Adalimumab is not for you. The list goes on and on and on and on. So, think twice before you put any drug in your body. It might not always benefit you.

With all that’s going on right now, I’m pretty sure we all just want this pandemic to come to an end already. The scientists aren’t just sitting around and watching it happen though, that’s for sure. Labs are in full swing doing numerous tests trying to figure out how to put an end to Covid19. The goal is to basically make everyone immune, because without that, we’d be stuck in our homes for who knows how long. I guess we really don’t know how long we WILL be stuck in our homes though. One step to reaching this goal, includes antibodies.

For a while now, we have had tests to determine who has the infection, but now we can determine who had the infection already, but it has passed.  You might have had it without even knowing! And who knows who you gave it to… that’s a scary thought. Now with this test, we’re able to see more of a pattern and see how truly contagious and deadly (or not deadly) it is. Different nations are taking different pools out of their population and taking blood to study their antibodies, which will lead to the findings. Taking out the antibodies, may lead to this foreign concept of Covid-19 considering immunity because they may lead to protection. It is still largely up in the air whether this actually will lead to protection or not. If it doesn’t we’re kinda screwed. Vaccines aren’t predicted to be released for another 18 months. YIKES.  

When it comes to types of antibodies produced in our body, we are able to test based on our immunoglobulin production, IgM and IgG. IgG is the most abundant antibody in our body, whereas IgM is found predominately in our blood and lymph.  Which immunoglobulins are present will determine whether you had/have the virus. Testing positive for only IgM would indicate that you may have just gotten the virus (uh oh). Having both IgM and IgG would mean that you’re probably in the middle of the symptoms, so hopefully you didn’t give it to anyone. Lastly, having only IgG probably means that you had Coronavirus, but its gone, so double hope you didn’t pass it to anyone. So all in all, hopefully this whole antibody testing is gonna work its magic as the scientists believe it will, because I am sick of being holed up in my home, and I bet you are too (also it sucks that there’s a lot of sick people and I’m extra nervous for my grandparents).   

Everybody has always dreamed of curing cancer, and maybe we have finally come across that cure. We may be able to even cure ourselves through our own cancerous cells, through T cell and dendritic cell therapy. T cell therapy is when the doctors take the cancerous patient’s T cells from the body and alter them in order to be able to attack the cancerous cells. In dendritic cell therapy, the cancerous cells are turned into a vaccine for the cancer. Doctors remove cancerous cells and multiply them and bring them back into the body, in order to create an immune response to the cancer.

In 2018, clinical trials took place in which 263 out of 1,028 patients tested the use of dendritic cell vaccines. In most cases, DC was used to treat cancers, but in some it was even used to treat autoimmune disorders, including MS. I wish my grandma happened to be born about 50 years later otherwise this could be a feasible treatment for her. Now, especially with MS, she’s a little cranky and doesn’t want to try anything else that could possibly put her in more pain, which makes sense since she’s 85. If my grandma were to get dendritic therapy, there would be high risk chances of her getting secondary infections, which, because of her age and her disease, could end up killing her.

In later studies, it is found that the personalized treatments through T cell therapy might not be as reliable as we hoped. The therapy only works “as long as the transferred cells last.” Because tumors can fight against immune responses, it makes T cell therapy difficult to fight against a tumor, and attack them because the tumor is so strong. Along with not even working that well, T cell therapy also leads to cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity.

DC therapy seems to be much more beneficial than T cell especially including the large cost difference and availability. A vaccine would be able to help the immune system rebuild itself, instead of where the T cell therapy is purely relying on the immune system, that is especially weak in a cancer patient. In a study done with DC therapy on melanoma, it was shown to be not as effective as we hope though, as both patients received a reappearance of the cancerous spot. In one case in Cuba, a lung cancer patients used Dc, where it worked.  It is still a developing a cure, and many obstacles are being thrown our way, where the vaccine works in some people, but doesn’t work for others. Increased study and time should help us come to an overall cure eventually for cancer, which is so desperately needed.  

I bet your world is being rocked, just as much as mine, and the rest of the world’s right now. Last week I was planning on going back to school to get all of my stuff in my school house at UNC so I could have my summer clothes at home, but psych my county put a restriction until the end of April that I couldn’t leave my house unless I was getting food, medications, or exercise. NOW there is a restriction on all of North Carolina. This is a pretty scary time, and nothing that I would have ever imagined happening. I’m trying to keep my life entertaining right now and not get too bored. Right now, my boyfriend and I are rotating between our two houses, but not ever going anywhere outside of our houses (except for exercise, but not touching anyone). We’ve been with each other since the quarantine started happening, so we know we’re not endangering our families or ourselves.

We’re at my house during the school week and we’ve set up ourselves an office and a school set up. On the weekends we drive to his house, which is about 45 minutes away. He lives on the lake, so since the weather is getting nice and toasty were able to go out on the boat and jet skis, which is definitely a way to limit our boredom. I think the most important thing to do during this time is to get a hobby and spend a lot of time outside, that way were not always in our heads being bored, which in my case gives me a lot of anxiety. I bought a workout plan that I can watch videos and workout since I no longer have a gym obviously. I have been going on a lot of outdoor runs through greenways, bike rides, and walks. Being active is also very important to me to keep me happy and keep my head on straight.

School-wise, I’m a little overwhelmed. Its pretty difficult to keep everything on track, with some of my teachers making video classes, while others aren’t. One of my classes, the professor isn’t having classes, but sends us about 30-40 emails a day that each take about 10 minutes to read with different articles and movies to watch and read. That one is probably my most overwhelming one and gets me pretty confused (good thing I can pass fail it now). Otherwise, I think my classes are going well, but it has been difficult to figure out how everything is changing and putting myself in a new headspace for school.  One plus that has come out of this though, is in my free time I have been reading a lot more like I used to. My boyfriend plays a lot of video games, so when he’s doing that I’ll read, do my schoolwork, or workout. So, I’m still being productive with my time. Sometimes ( a lot of times) when I feel lazy and just don’t want to be productive, I’ll join in on the video games. He just bought the new game Animal Crossing, you’ve probably heard of it. It’s pretty addicting, and I’ve found myself making a whole life on the video game, which is definitely not something I would typically do.

One last thing that has gotten me excited about being home, without all the chaos going on, is I’m about to cook a lot. I love finding new recipes and coming up with ideas. My boyfriend and I always come up with things to make, and we switch off with both of our parents. We have become obsessed with watching shows with Gordon Ramsay and are getting lots of tips. So, as you can see I’m keeping myself occupied, just as everyone else should be doing. Its basically just like summer right now, except I cant see any of my other friends and I still have school work. I’m not minding this lifestyle. Obviously I can’t wait for it to end so I can go back to regular life, but I’m taking advantage of it as I can.

Basically, all we’ve heard about for the last few weeks is Coronavirus, and it might remain that way for a while. People seem to be following the rules, and barely getting out of their homes, but when people get antsy, many are known to get “frisky while in self-isolation”. As sexual activities rise between people in isolation, sexually transmitted infections have been skyrocketing in the UK. In the past few weeks, it has been reported that over the counter medications used to treat chlamydia have increased in sales (online of course) by 46%.  So, which is worse, going out and spreading Coronavirus, or everyone getting chlamydia? Well, ideally, we can stop spreading chlamydia much more easily than Coronavirus.

Chlamydia, like many other STIs, is a disease that is EASILY prevented. Safe sex is just as easy as washing your hands for the Coronavirus. The preferred, and 100% effective method, is simple, abstinence! But obviously, that’s not going to happen. STIs have long been a problem, with 1,757,668 cases in the US in 2018, long before Coronavirus was a thing. It’s not super serious, if caught in time, but with no treatment, creates a lot of problems for women. It can cause “pelvic pain, fallopian tube scarring, and even infertility,” so my recommendation is quit with the unsafe sex.

This link between Coronavirus and the Chlamydia outbreak in the UK, is not purely coincidental. Coronavirus does NOT cause chlamydia, this is our own doing. If you’re truly listening to the rules of quarantine, you shouldn’t be getting out of your house to have multiple sex partners. In a monogamous relationship, it is rare to get an STI, unless the other person decided to not be as faithful. So, if you want to reduce your risk of getting chlamydia, reduce your sex pool to just one person, and make sure they are not carrying any sexually transmitted infection. If abstinence, and having one partner is still hard for you, why not use a condom? They do wonders for protection. Preventing chlamydia is so easy, so let’s all do it together!

STDs have a very bad stigma, even though basically everyone has sex. HPV, the most common sexually transmitted disease causes the widely known HIV and Herpes virus, spread through “vaginal, anal, or oral sex,” so majority of the world old enough to have sex, can easily get this disease. Sexually transmitted diseases can cause minor problems, but in many unfortunate cases they are not so minor, causing cancer. One way to basically eliminate your chances of this occurring is to simply, get vaccinated, not that difficult.

HPV is causing way too many diseases in the US considering there is such an easy method of preventing it. Since 2005, rates of cancer due to HPV have risen by 45%. Why are people refusing to get this vaccine??? If the vaccine is taken even just once (when you should be getting 3 shots throughout your life) it prevents chance of getting HPV causing cancers by 90%. HPV is usually cleared out of the body, but the virus remains latent in the body, slowly killing it and infecting it, which is the problem that most people don’t realize. Although we may think that the US in in bad standings, compared to developing countries, HPV is a main killer.

The vaccine appeared in 2006, after years of people contracting the infection and dying from the outcome. Even with the new introduction of the prevention method, in 2007, HPV was still the highest killer among women across the world, with “493,000 new cases” each year. Researchers began first realizing what it was in 1984 as it was seen that 1% of women had cervical cancer in many developing countries, noting that it was a huge problem when there are little methods of treatment in these areas. In 2008, Professor Ian Frazer began introducing his vaccination method to undeveloped nations in order to prevent this deadly disease, as 85% of HPV infections occurred in developing countries. By 2014, HPV related cancers declined by 44.1%, which in my opinion isn’t enough because it is 100% preventable, but it still is something.

Based on personal experience, I feel like I can basically control my sicknesses because of all the drugs we have today. But, that idea is slowly (actually pretty quickly) dwindling away. It seems like if I get a cold, strep, or really anything, I can just take an antibiotic and adios! But not anymore. We’re all becoming resistant to basically everything! I went to campus health just a few weeks ago and the doctor didn’t even know if I had a sinus infection or not, but gave me antibiotics, just in case (don’t worry I didn’t take them). It all came into check with me when over the summer I had an ENDLESS stream of UTIs and could not get rid of them no matter how hard I tried. Turns out, I was resistant to basically all of the antibiotics the doctors gave me. That’s quite problematic.

Why are we all of a sudden resistant to so many antibiotics and is this a real problem? Well yes, it is a real problem. For me being antiresistant to a UTI antibiotic isn’t the end of the world, but when it comes to more serious infections and people that are immunocompromised, it gets serious. According to CDC, antibiotic resistant infections caused more than 35,000 deaths last year, which maybe could have been prevented. Obviously it’s amazing that antibiotics were discovered in the first place, but they shouldn’t have lasted as short as they did. Antibiotics have been so overused that bacteria are developing mutations to certain medications, causing them to not actually work. People are using them for illness that don’t actually need, them, unnecessarily introducing them to our body which in turn, means they might not work later on.

So what’s going happen if we end up not being able to use ANY antibiotics? We die? It basically means that the medicine we use to cure our infections now are no longer going to kill any of the nasty germs in our body. It could make it so our illnesses are impossible to get rid of, so will we just be walking infections? Nope, we can only survive so long with infections overriding our body. People are already dying from so many diseases because of antibiotic resistance, mortality rates are just going to skyrocket when we become completely resistant. We’re going to be at square one, before antibiotics were even invented. With the resistance, there will be so many medical technique setbacks including “cancer treatment, organ transplants, and joint replacements.” So the conclusion is, stop overusing antibiotics!!!!

If there is a vaccine for basically any disease, my vote is that you get it. One in particular, is for pertussis, aka whooping cough. When I was in middle school, it went around, so thank goodness I was vaccinated. These middle schoolers were obviously not babies, so their symptoms were not as extreme as if they were to give it to their baby siblings. It’s highly contagious, so if these kids sneezed, coughed, or even breathed near a baby without the vaccine, hell could erupt. Whooping cough causes the most dangerous effects in babies due to the respiratory infection. Very intense coughing occurs with difficulty breathing, limited amount of oxygen, vomiting, and even lead to death. Infants should get their first shot of the vaccine at about 2 months, so if an older person contracts the disease due to not receiving the vaccine, they may infect these infants. (not good)

Herd immunity is big for this disease, meaning you/your kids should all be getting your vaccines, and that means every booster shot. The Pertussis vaccine, DTaP, also prevents Diphtheria and Tetanus, giving you even MORE of a reason to get it. Children should get their 5 doses between 2 months and 6 years old, and finally a booster Tdap shot at 11 years old. It prevents the terrible whooping sound come out of your baby, and even may save its life. And if you’re older than 11 years old without the shots, that doesn’t mean its too late for you. You can still get vaccinated with Tdap and it will still prevent you from contracting the disease, and more importantly, spreading the disease.

“Why do we need so many shots for this infection?” you may ask. Well, that is because, unfortunately, after the first early shots, the vaccine begins to wear off. Multiple shots will give extra protection, preventing the complications of pneumonia, brain damage, and death. Having the booster shot will then “maintain the protection,” according to CDC. The vaccine can cause side effects, but none nearly as threatening as Pertussis itself. This can include swelling at the site of the shot, a slight fever, and vomiting. Compared to the damages of whooping cough in an infant, I think I would choose this over my baby dying. I would think you would too.

This week the blog assignment is to write about vaccines. You should have Connect assignments to read and review Chapter 18.1 and 18.2. In your blog this week, discuss the IPV and the OPV, as well as what is happening with Polio in the world in the last 6 months.

You probably know about Franklin D. Roosevelt, but did you know he had Polio? Poliomyelitis is another one of those diseases that can be completely eradicated, but since some people refuse to get vaccinated or just don’t know much about it, it’s still killing people. Polio causes paralysis, as the virus spreads through the brain and spinal cord, and eventually leads to death, so why wouldn’t we be getting said vaccine? There are 2 vaccines for this disease, giving us double protection basically! One is an inactivated virus, IPV, and the other being an attenuated virus, OPV. Young children who have not been vaccinated are at the highest risk, so get your children vaccinated… now.

So, what’s the difference in the two vaccines, why do we need both? Both are fighting off the virus flooding through your body. Well, some countries are no longer using OPV, which is taken orally and does not need a healthcare facility. For the countries that still have OPV, they use both IPV and OPV. The IPV vaccine is adding an additional protection to the poliovirus and strengthens the immune system even more. OPV is the first, preventative measure against the infection, so why are some people just taking IPV and some people taking both? There’s not a lot of evidence proving that taking both OPV and IPV is better than just taking IPV, so why waste the money?

As of late, the UN is paying extra attention to the disease and is putting in a lot of effort to completely eradicate the disease, since it is possible. Polio is quite a problem because there is no cure after someone contracts it, which is why the whole contraction part needs to be stopped immediately. It is passed between people through direct contact and is highly prevalent in Afghanistan. According to the UN News, 1/3 of children are not getting their vaccines, which has caused a reemergence of the disease. Workers of the UN are literally knocking on people’s doors, and creating booths at train and bus stops to get everyone vaccinated, obviously getting pretty serious about it. People are hard at work to stop polio from spreading, and so far it seems to be working.

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If you’re anything like me, you probably think getting a vaccine is a good idea. Sadly, some people think the opposite, for reasons that are just illogical and have no proof. A lot of people think it is unsafe or just unnecessary to put vaccines into their children, which in turn cause a lot of harm for the surrounding environment. People began to question in the late 90s and early 2000s that maybe vaccines could cause autism or even be putting chemicals such as mercury into their bodies, therefore they stopped. Without a good amount of people being vaccinated, herd immunity starts dwindling away, which causes extreme concern. The whole “anti-vaccine” idea has become a movement and basically a religion. People breathe through their belief that vaccines are ruining our world.

It all started after Andrew Wakefield released his study, in 1998, on the link of vaccines and autism, then everyone began to question everything about vaccines, whether it was proven false or not (which it was). The world of antivaxxers, is majority made up of moms. These moms think that they’re doing good for the world, but in reality, they’re basically killing their children (that might be a little harsh). Because the baby’s immune system isn’t fully developed yet before age 3, they are putting their child at extreme risk for developing a deadly disease. The WHO released a list of misconceptions of vaccines which are leading people to believe they are not necessary. These include:

1. Hygiene and sanitation removes diseases
2. Most people who get diseases are vaccinated anyway
3. Vaccines cause the disease
4. Vaccines have more harmful side effects than good (death and illness)
5. Vaccines have already eliminated the disease, therefore we don’t need the vaccine anymore
6. Multiple vaccines in a baby can be too much for a baby’s immune system

The WHO, along with many other organizations are working in order to inform the public of how important vaccination is. Groups of “anti-vaxxers” have formed and it seems very difficult to change their minds of the effectiveness and importance of vaccines. People are trying to use science and statistics to prove that the movement of “anti-vaxxers” needs to come to an end. If it doesn’t, and it spreads, our world could enter another episode of the plague, killing millions of people, even though we have a prevention method, which just seems crazy. This large group of insanity has some research to do.