Indiegogo Halford campaign ?

[herpes-sucks]

Looks like $6 has been raised, so far.  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/live-vaccine-for-human-herpes-virus#/

Although I appreciate the effort made by Alexander Thomas (the person who started this), my kids lemonade stand made more money than that recently.

As I suggested, since no major pharma/biotech is currently interested in partnering with Halford, he should try to get on Shark Tank.  Lol

Looks like Halford has been working on his vaccine for 20+ years.  Just seems like if he had the goods, someone over the last 2 decades would have taken notice and a financial interest.

Keep in mind, I want a cure just as bad as everyone else. I have just never understood the hype surrounding this guy.

 

[oneday]

Didn't even know he was running a campaign! There should have been more announcements, any research in hsv is good because we just don't know which one will have the cure. I think we should support anyone who is trying.

[Sanguine108]

We need a nerdy, jocky showman (or woman) of a scientist behind it.   Literally making it a popularity contest is what people need to do.  can't believe Halford only has $6 in 6 days.

 

[throwawayday345]

I highly, highly doubt this is any kind of official fundraiser for Halford. He's already raised a million this year alone. This is just some guy; don't sweat it. 

Edited October 25, 2015 by throwawayday345

[Evaluate]

Donating money online seems very sketchy to me. How do you know that the donation is being used for what a site like that says?

 

 

 

 

[Europa]

Who knows who this person is. There are SEC filings for Halford's company Rational Vaccines that say he has raised $700k which was amended up from $269k. I've read and studied Halford's research papers and his Blog. Its the real deal. The NIH tried and failed with subunit vaccines which soured the market. But a subunit vaccine CANNOT elicit a full immune response. It only elicits an immune response to a single protein as opposed to the dozens which make up the Hepres Virus. His vaccine is an attenuated live vaccine where modifications of a gene causes the virus to be unable to survive cellular multiplication. But it infects a cell and releases all but one protein so the immune system is able to create both antibodies and a T cell response to an almost complete virus. So when the virus appears appears in your skin, it elicits a full response.

Almost all successful viral vaccines to date have been a form of attenuated virus. Single peptide/protein or partial vaccines just don't work. But there is plenty of fear of a vaccine with the word "live" in it. The fairly recent and SUCCESSFUL shingles vaccine is a live attenuated and against the Herpes chicken pox virus. Halford found one of the ideal genes to modify such that its both safe and produces an initial infection but cannot survive. The probable reason raising money is slow is because they only need $700k and want to show some level of effectiveness before raising more. Based on the various papers Halford has published, all the science is done. They are probably trying to find the best and fastest way of getting to trials without the FDA cost. Just going down the FDA road is a billion $ problem which scares investors until human safety and effectiveness has been shown. I bet they pop up next year with human trial data that blows everyone's mind and new Herpes will be potentially gone while those already infected will get partial relief, but no cure. A cure is a whole different ball game.

[dont quit!]

Hopefully but Halford has to get his backside into some type of trials. After this happens, then the numbers will speak for themselves.

[Sillybrain2]

I am truly hopeless with this research caper (I'm trying hard to understand), but doesn't Halford claim to have the cure, or is that Bloom/Cullen?

why can't it just be straight forward?

[Europa]

No it is not a cure. But it has a good chance of eliminating outbreaks and reducing them to brief prodromal sensations. That's not a cure but it does greatly reduce the suffering but does not eliminate but reduces the odds of giving it to someone else.

So it would effectively be a better one time antiviral equivalent. Antivirals like Valtrex only shorten outbreaks. But a vaccine can stimulate your immune system such that it stops the outbreak before it becomes a visible sore. This is because the immune system is primed with antibodies and memory T cells that can quickly attack wen the virus emerges from the nervous system.

Since the nervous system is immune privileged, it cannot get to the virus inactive hiding  in the neurons. A cure would require finding a method to get to ALL the hiding virus's or a way of causing ALL the virus's to exit their hiding place so they can be killed by the immune system in conjunction with antivirals. Nobody has shown a strategy for a real cure but a large outbreak reduction is a big deal.

[lexyz22]

8 hours ago, Europa said:

No it is not a cure. But it has a good chance of eliminating outbreaks and reducing them to brief prodromal sensations. That's not a cure but it does greatly reduce the suffering but does not eliminate but reduces the odds of giving it to someone else.

So it would effectively be a better one time antiviral equivalent. Antivirals like Valtrex only shorten outbreaks. But a vaccine can stimulate your immune system such that it stops the outbreak before it becomes a visible sore. This is because the immune system is primed with antibodies and memory T cells that can quickly attack wen the virus emerges from the nervous system.

Since the nervous system is immune privileged, it cannot get to the virus inactive hiding  in the neurons. A cure would require finding a method to get to ALL the hiding virus's or a way of causing ALL the virus's to exit their hiding place so they can be killed by the immune system in conjunction with antivirals. Nobody has shown a strategy for a real cure but a large outbreak reduction is a big deal.

People involved in the Genocea Clinical Trials (for the ones who posted here anyway) have said that apart from the initial injection (similar to flu where it causes an initial outbreak) they have been outbreak AND prodrome free. And all this from a vaccine that has only reduced symptoms by 58%. 

Its safe to say Halford's vaccine would do a similar if not better thing, aka: Completely eliminating prodrome symptoms, skin lesions and at the very least matching Genocea's 58% reduction in shedding, but more realistically producing a better result. We could maybe see 80-90% reduction here (im speculating here, but if a subunit vaccine like Genocea produced 58% reduction ,imagine what a live attenuated vaccine could do), which by all means is as close to a functional cure as we will see within the next 20 years.

[herpes-sucks]

15 hours ago, lexyz22 said:

People involved in the Genocea Clinical Trials (for the ones who posted here anyway) have said that apart from the initial injection (similar to flu where it causes an initial outbreak) they have been outbreak AND prodrome free. And all this from a vaccine that has only reduced symptoms by 58%. 

Its safe to say Halford's vaccine would do a similar if not better thing, aka: Completely eliminating prodrome symptoms, skin lesions and at the very least matching Genocea's 58% reduction in shedding, but more realistically producing a better result. We could maybe see 80-90% reduction here (im speculating here, but if a subunit vaccine like Genocea produced 58% reduction ,imagine what a live attenuated vaccine could do), which by all means is as close to a functional cure as we will see within the next 20 years.

Halford doesn't indicate his vaccine would do better than Genocea.  How are you making this assumption ?

If fact he seems to not have any idea as to the therapeutic value, saying on his own site:

This latter application of a HSV-2 vaccine (i.e., to reduce symptoms in those who already carry the HSV-2 virus) would be more experimental, and less of a sure thing than a preventative HSV-2 vaccine. 

Going on to say....

Therefore, once a safe and effective HSV-2 preventative vaccine is identified, it will be relevant to determine if it has potential to also serve as a therapeutic HSV-2 vaccine.