What is the advantage of getting a vaccine over getting antibodies?
As I understand it, a vaccine is a weakened form of a disease that gets the body’s immune system to produce antibodies. There is talk about using antibodies from people who have had the corona virus. Why is this not as effective as the antibodies from a vaccine? Is the difference between the two that the vaccine gets the body to make its own antibodies while just using someone else’s antibodies means that they will eventually run out?
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Vaccine challenges your immune system to make your own antibodies.
And often the vaccine is not from a “weakened” form of the disease. Often it’s killed virus, or it’s from recombinant DNA.
Isn’t a major difference that vaccine is manufactured, whereas harvested antibodies are the result of a natural process?
In both cases, the effect is to stimulate the body’s own production of antiviral cells—right?
@Jeruba No. If you inject someone with antibodies they work only as long as the antibodies stick around, which isn’t long. If you give a vaccine, then the body will produce the antibodies every time the antigen is presented to the immune system.
Ah, big difference. Thanks. So @LostInParadise was essentially right?
Are vaccines developed from antibodies, though?
So I guess the thing right now is that human-produced antibodies have the advantage of existing, whereas there’s no vaccine yet. Is that correct, at least?
@Caravanfan
Is there a possibility that a person’s own antibodies could attack the injected ones, and perhaps cause an allergic reaction?
@Brian1946 Out of my scope of knowledge. It’s always possible to have an allergy.
I thought people here might be interested in this information about vaccines for Covid. You can forward to 7:30 mark to get right to it. https://youtu.be/1iIIe65ZbDE
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@Caravanfan
It’s my understanding that getting antibodies is more for those who are trying to recover from an active infection correct?
Not just anyone’s antibodies can be used. It has to be a close donor match, similar to the way organ or bone marrow transplants are done. The problem is it’s so expensive that it’ll never be feasible for anyone but the rich. It’s the same problem with the recently-developed cure for HIV which uses the similar processes; it will never be used for the general public because only the rich can afford the process.
Regardless of how you value your life, the cold, heartless beancounters who enact the rulership of the billionaire oligarchs who control the world have calculated to the penny how much your life is actually worth. For example, here in Kanada middle class workers are getting $2000 a month to tide them over during the pandemic, while people on welfare or disability pensions get sweet fuck-all. That $2000 a month is how much a middle class person’s life is worth to the Archons to keep them alive, while a disabled person is only worth $1100 a month and someone on welfare is only worth $850 a month.
Your value as a human being is measured by your usefulness in keeping the rich in a position of power and authority. The amount of resources allocated to your health care are a function of that value, and the billionaire robber barons who rule us do not regard the general hoi polloi as worth a sufficient expenditure to provide antibody treatment to every person. A vaccine is much cheaper to produce, so that will likely be doled out when it’s available—in the First World anyway. I doubt they regard lives in Bangladesh or Liberia of sufficient value to them to waste vaccine on them.
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