Australian COVID-19 vaccine produces ZERO side effects in human trials and provides protection against the virus in animals while reducing symptoms

A coronavirus vaccine being developed by Australian researchers has produced zero side effects in human trials so far and has shown promise with mammals.

The University of Queensland and Australian biotech giant CSL last month began injecting 120 Brisbane volunteers with a trial vaccine.

Hamsters in the Netherlands were also administered the drug.

Project co-leader Associate Professor Keith Chappell said the European animal trials, conducted by Dutch diagnostic testing firm Viroclinics-DDL, had proven to be a success.

'The neutralising immune response created by our molecular clamp vaccine in animal models was better than the average level of antibodies found in patients who have recovered from COVID-19,' Dr Chappell said.

He said the hamsters given the vaccine and Seqirus MF59® adjuvant had reduced lung inflammation after exposure to the virus.

No side effects have been reported so far on the human trial element taking place in Brisbane, although more clinical results are needed from the volunteers in suburban Herston.

UQ's Brisbane project is one of just 17 human trials for a potential vaccine happening worldwide, including in the US, UK and China.

Globally, more than 130 coronavirus vaccines are being developed but UQ's work has demonstrated great success in the pre-clinical development stage.

The good news from clinical trials has been revealed a week after Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government signed an in-principal deal with UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to receive early supplies of a potentially successful vaccine being developed with Oxford University.

Should UQ successfully develop a vaccine in Australia, Dr Chappell said the biggest challenge would be in tasking CSL, formerly known as Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, with manufacturing sufficient quantities of the drug.

'One of the big challenges in the development of vaccines is the ability to produce them at sufficient scale for widespread use,' he said.

'We are working with CSL to ensure the production yield is as efficient as possible, and have every confidence they will be able to manufacture the millions of doses required to protect the Australian public.'

UQ is running clinical trials until mid-2021 - but, if successful, a potential vaccine could be rolled out at the start of next year for emergency use among the broader Australian population.

The Queensland vaccine has the advantage of being worked on in partnership with a manufacturer, CSL, meaning it could be mass produced quickly if successful.

The global Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness announced a partnership with CSL in June to fast-track clinical testing and potentially begin manufacturing should the trials prove successful.

CEPI gave UQ $15.16million to develop a molecular clamp vaccine platform that enables rapid vaccine design and production.

Another $10million came from the Queensland government, with the commonwealth chipping in another $5million in addition to the $10million that has come from philanthropic donors.

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Could MOUTHWASH cut the spread of Covid-19? Scientists to study whether gargling Dentyl will destroy the virus after promising results

Researchers will test whether or not gargling with Dentyl mouthwash can help prevent the spread of Covid-19 amid claims it could fight the virus.

Covid-19 patients at Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales will take part in the research to find out if it has the potential to reduce the levels of the virus in saliva.

SARS-CoV-2 — the coronavirus behind the pandemic which has killed 800,000 people — is an enveloped virus with an outer fatty (lipid) membrane.

Studies have suggested agents found in mouthwash – such as low amounts of ethanol – could disrupt the membranes of other lipid viruses.

For instance, researchers say iodine mouthwashes have proved very effective against SARS and MERS, two diseases caused by similar coronaviruses.

Dentyl — which contains the anti-microbial cetylpyridinium chloride — is the only UK mouthwash brand to take part in the 12-week study.

Professor David Thomas is the lead author of the study, titled: 'The measurement of mouthwash anti-viral activity against Covid-19'.

He said: 'We are very keen to start this much-needed clinical trial as our review of the literature indicated that we need to look deeper into the possible positive impact that mouthwashes may play on the transmission of Covid-19.

'We believe this is an exciting opportunity to determine whether a compound that can inactivate an enveloped virus in a test tube may work in humans, actively shedding the virus in the mouth and throat.'

HOW COULD MOUTHWASH FIGHT COVID-19?

Coronaviruses belong to the class of 'enveloped viruses', meaning they are covered by a fatty layer that is vulnerable to certain chemicals.

Studies have suggested agents found in mouthwash – such as low amounts of ethanol – could disrupt the membranes of other lipid viruses, in the same way as UV rays.

For instance, researchers say iodine mouthwashes have proved effective against SARS and MERS, two diseases caused by similar coronaviruses.

Scientists in May called for urgent research into the use of readily available mouthwash to reduce the spread of the virus. 

Jerry Randall, chief executive of Venture Life, Dentyl's parent company, said: 'We are excited at the prospect that this long-standing, well-known mouthwash product could help in the fight against Covid-19.'

The launch of the study comes after a group of scientists in May called for urgent research into the use of readily available mouthwash to reduce the spread of the virus.

Publishing their review in the Function journal, the authors wrote: 'We highlight that already published research on other enveloped viruses, including coronaviruses, directly supports the idea that further research is needed on whether oral rinsing could be considered as a potential way to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2.'

Lead author Professor Valerie O'Donnell, co-director of Cardiff University's Systems Immunity Research Institute, said at the time: 'Safe use of mouthwash – as in gargling – has so far not been considered by public health bodies in the UK.'

She added: 'This is an under-researched area of major clinical need – and we hope that research projects will be quickly mobilised to further evaluate this.'

The completed research will be peer reviewed before it is published in around six months' time.

It comes after experts last month claimed iodine mouthwash could destroy Covid-19 and prevent or reduce its effects if someone is already sick.

Researchers at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain said the specific type of mouthwash can have 'significant virucidal activity'.

Testing on a small group of patients with Covid-19, they found using the mouthwash reduced the number of viruses that were in their saliva.

Lower viral loads — the number of viruses circulating through the body — have been linked to milder symptoms and faster recovery.

Iodine mouthwash is stronger than popular shop-bought products such as Listerine or Colgate, which typically don't contain the antiseptic chemical.

Instead, they are more commonly used by dentists. One brand that contains iodine is Betadine.

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The Republican Convention Is Proof: The Party of Bush, McCain and Romney Is Dead

The Democratic Party propaganda machine, more commonly known as the mainstream media, has been gushing over the establishment Republicans who appeared at the Democratic National Convention to denounce President Trump and endorse Joe Biden, but as last night’s Republican National Convention showed, the days of the Republican Party being a pale shadow of the Democrats are over. In 2020, as in 2016 but not for a considerable period before that, we actually have a choice, not an echo, as Barry Goldwater offered America way back in 1964.

As Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster demonstrates, the United States has been under the control of what is essentially a one-party system in two factions since at least the early 1950s. One of the most damaging aspects of the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first Republican president since the onset of the Great Depression, was his refusal to challenge the basic premises of the New Deal. That’s how we got into this fix.

The Eisenhower administration was generally a period of great prosperity. However, after twenty years of New Deal expansion of the government, it was widely expected by observers from both parties that Eisenhower would at least attempt to fight the leviathan and diminish the gargantuan and ever-growing federal government. Instead, he did little to halt the expansion of federal power. He resisted numerous measures that would have repealed or rolled back New Deal programs. He was determinedly bipartisan, going along with numerous Democratic initiatives, even when they involved the centralization that he warned against. In 1954, he stated his guiding philosophy: “I have just one purpose, outside of the job of keeping this world in peace…and that is to build up a strong progressive Republican Party in this country. If the right wing wants a fight, they are going to get it. If they want to leave the Republican Party and form a third party, that’s their business, but before I end up, either this Republican Party will reflect progressivism or I won’t be with them anymore.”

George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan couldn’t have said it better.

With the Republicans implementing large government programs, and the Democrats remaining the standard-bearers for an expanded federal government, voters had no choice but to accept it.

Even Eisenhower realized this. In 1964, three years out of office and a popular and respected elder statesman, he wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post entitled “Why I Am a Republican.” In it, he declared:

I am increasingly disturbed by the steady, obvious drift of our nation toward a centralization of power of the Federal Government. And in this fact is found the primary reason why I sincerely urge all voters, no matter their present political affiliations, to take a fresh, thoughtful look at the basic Republican philosophy and Republican performance as compared to that of the Democrats. For the hard fact is that under many years of Democratic Party leadership our country has been lured into the ‘easy way,’ a path of federal expediency which, like a narcotic, may give us a false sense of well-being, but in the long run is dangerous to our future, our basic rights, our moral fiber and our individual freedom.

That meant that both parties endorsed a rapidly expanding federal government, higher taxes, and more state interference in the daily lives of Americans. His 1964 article suggests that, by then, he had seen the error of his ways. But by then, it was too late.

Eisenhower’s “Modern Republicanism” reduced the Republican Party to a faint echo of the Democrats. Democrats would formulate grand proposals that generally involved a massive expansion of government spending and control, and instead of challenging these proposals at their foundations and arguing against them on principle, Republicans would merely quibble that they could be implemented more cheaply and efficiently. Eisenhower ensured that even when Republicans were in the majority, they continued to have a minority mentality: the Democrats were setting the agenda for the country.

There would be pushback against this assumption within the Republican Party, but the dominant mainstream of Republicanism ever since Ike has been to say “Me too” to the Democrats, rather than “I object.” Eisenhower didn’t originate the idea of making the Republican Party a pale copy of the Democratic Party, rather than a genuine principled opposition: FDR’s opponents Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, and Thomas E. Dewey would likely have done much the same thing, but they lost and he won, so Eisenhower must be credited as the primary architect of what is essentially a single party in two factions that has, for the most part, governed America since the 1950s.

Rating America’s Presidents shows that while Ronald Reagan gave some pushback to this one-party rule, it has not been until the presidency of Donald J. Trump that it has been seriously challenged. The two-party system is back, or more precisely, the one-party system is facing off against one determined individual who is attracting an increasingly large following. This November will be decisive for the question of whether the one-party elites will in the future exert their hegemony unchallenged, as they did for so long.

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