Activistpost: Viruses And The GM Insect “Flying Vaccine” Solution

http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/viruses-and-gm-insect-flying-vaccine.html
DECEMBER 13, 2010
Brandon Turbeville

“…The basic premise behind the flying mosquito vaccines is that an insect will be genetically modified to produce antibodies to a certain disease in their saliva, which is then transmitted to the individual when the mosquito bites them.
There is a host of problems with this method that range from the moral to the scientific. First, the presence of antibodies does not necessarily mean immunity, and the transfer of them does not in any way provide immunization to the subject being injected with them. The science related to antibodies and immunity is still largely unsettled. Vaccines, themselves, are completely ineffective and have never been proven effective by a study that was not connected to a drug company or a pharmaceutical company.[1] They are, essentially, faith-based medicine…”

Full Article: Viruses And The GM Insect “Flying Vaccine” Solution

Chikungunya threat inspires new DARPA challenge

http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/08/chikungunya-threat-inspires-new-darpa-challenge
The research branch of the U.S. Department of Defense wants to know when and where the next outbreak of the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus will occur, and it’s offering $150,000 for the best new approach. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) today announced its first health-related challenge, which asks scientific teams to forecast over 6 months how the debilitating disease might spread in the Americas and the Caribbean
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Hepburn says DARPA wants to find technologies that U.S. health officials can use to make decisions in the case of an outbreak. “It’s one thing to know what’s happening on the ground currently,” he says, “but really to design your response decisions, you need to know what’s going to happen next.” Forecasts of how severe an outbreak will be, where it might move, and who is most susceptible would help health officials concentrate resources in the right places, killing mosquitos and their larvae, or eliminating out potential breeding grounds in places of high risk.

The challenge drew inspiration from a similar competition at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) focused on influenza prediction—a field that has received more scientific attention than chikungunya and benefits from an annual influx of data during the peak season. CDC’s winning submission, announced in June, combined Google and CDC data to accurately predict the peak and intensity of the 2013 to 2014 season.