I haven't been commenting recently because I feel like my comments will run minutes long and I would need to do a lot of my own research beforehand.
With that being said, I found it rather strange the level of repetition that came with the initial arrival of OAS onto Substack with many publishers invoking the religious subtext as if that religious subtext provides the hypotheses any credibility or any greater cultural power. If it's the latter, then we have a serious problem in which we are having the culture drive the science rather than have the science stand on its own merits.
When I posted my open thread a few months ago I posted it with questions that weren't meant to be rhetorical. They were questions that OAS had to address or acknowledge in some fashion. I got a lot of great answers, but many people sort of glossed (don't sue me!) over those questions and provided their own perspective sans addressing a few of the questions with respect to OAS. There were even a few commenters asking (and I'll say in good-faith) that if I can't quite explain OAS maybe it means that I don't understand it well enough. Even if this argument is true, I can also argue that OAS is a nuanced hypothesis that requires addressing several factors, and ones that can't be boiled down to the phrase, "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell". My god, I hate that phrase!
So without casting any aspersions to anyone, I do believe we have a widespread phenomenon of the Dunning-Kruger effect happening. Not in the sense that people who throw out OAS are low IQ or of low intelligence, but that those who speak of OAS may do so in a highly simplified manner, and when possibly pushed to examine it further they may pushback and criticize those with dissenting voices.
I suppose there's a bit of me that has been growing more distraught, as it appears more people would rather reach for conclusions rather than see where the evidence leads us.
I suppose on another note, we should address the current Ba.4/Ba.5 "pandemic of the vaccinated" that doesn't appear to have grown any legs. I guess we should see whether the predictions are modified to still be correct or if we address the failings of said hypothesis.
By saying you can't quite explain it would you mean the Francis/"originalist" version or the extreme/detriment version?
The Francis version is only difficult because he makes it seem like he is saying more than "childhood antibodies higher" and "new antibodies cross-react with old strains." And even when modern writers say it that way (though usually in jargon) and say "this was called 'original antigenic sin' by this old dude" the modern reader is still going to see, in their mind, an unwritten "detriment," and assume there's some big super-theory beyond the limited description.
But those two things are still all he's saying as far as what OAS "is" (really just the latter thing, but the former is taken as part of the evidence of the latter in a rhetorically manipulative way). And like I said the early research adhered to that, very focused on showing non-"specificity" of new abs or otherwise investigating mechanism (which was actually productive in terms of exploring cellular immunity).
As for the extreme/detriment version, that's harder to define because most people proposing it are just assuming a model has been constructed where there isn't one.
'a phrase that provoked the imagination of those who didn’t yet know what he meant by it.'
And also those who, despite reading endlessly about OAS, are still hopelessly confused. I understand and agree with your semantic arguments. Yes, it's a stupid name.
But what this plebeian would really like to know is: having been vaccinated against Wuhan, (or is it Delta)?, is my immune system going to be impaired when confronted with the follow-on variants, or not? Assuming no boosters.
Those who care can argue about the language. The rest of us need to proceed with tiling the bathroom floor.
And it remains that all Francis was describing by that name is “Having more antibodies to childhood strains” and "new antibodies cross-react." I don't see what argument there is for either thing being relevant to impairing immune response. Does having more antibodies to Wuhan impair response? Obviously not if "more" is "more than enough." Does "new antibodies cross-reacting to Wuhan" impair response? You are protected against both the new version and genetic reversions and future lab leaks from frozen old samples and recombs, that sounds good.
And so, everything else that is now described as "OAS" is still not real. But the tolerance thing remains sticky, and B Cell imprinting is actually relevant to that as I mentioned in my other post.
I suppose one baffling thing about OAS is that OAS has somehow stood in place of cross-reactive immunity, but now instead of arguing that adaptive immunity that provides an immune response that spans across variants and provides us with broad protection, OAS is now a danger to us. Which one is it then? It is protective, or is it a hindrance? It's a struggle when OAS is somehow supposed to be a phenomenon of having your cake and eating it too.
'The version of the coronavirus you first encountered may affect how you respond to later variants of the virus — and maybe how well future vaccines work. My colleague Carolyn Y. Johnson explains why, when it comes to viral infections, past is prologue. The phenomenon, sometimes called “original antigenic sin,” is well-documented in the case of the influenza virus: The version of the flu virus you first catch as a child influences how sick you get from influenza viruses later in life. It remains unknown if your first brush with the coronavirus will have a similar effect, but scientists are debating how a person’s first exposure to the coronavirus might affect the effectiveness of the omicron-specific coronavirus booster shots coming this fall.'
That's a recap of the same article I give a so-so score to in this post. The recap is bad though, just hashing out the same fraternity dude version used to really sell the idea that there's some secret flaw in the immune system.
"well-documented in the case of the influenza virus: 1The version of the flu virus you first catch as a child 2influences how sick you get from influenza viruses later in life"
1 Not well-documented. As Monto et al. frequently point out, virtually none of the studies after the 70s even take childhood strain in mind "However, in terms of OAS, none of these studies reported an age cohort effect, which would be necessary for this to be termed OAS."
2 Again not well-documented, in part because it was never part of the original meaning - so by the time a detriment was added in, this was in the "childhood strain not considered era." And so you could say this clause applies to a handful of studies between 2009-2014 (showing protective effect from childhood exposure to more 1918-like strains) but is a handful "well-documented"?
So this is probably why Johnson's review gets a relatively positive review from me. It never just tries to bat the reader on the head with a "this is settled, totally known and proven, brah" line. Such as "This is not a crazy internet fantasy, but a well-observed limitation of human immunity." Nope. Nope. Nope.
Hi, thanks for your work on this. I wonder if you would mind helping me out with a shortcut - is Geert VB's 'train or drain' formulation reliant on the OAS concept that you criticise? I'm generally impressed with GVB's apparent knowledge and approach but anybody can be wrong and I'd like to get an alternative take.
However, when he claims that original-version antibodies prevent immune response against new epitopes, this is incorrect. What he is proposing is "masking," where naive B Cells don't see any new antigen because old antibodies bind well-enough (better than natural IgM). But responses do change after variant infection. Instead of masking preventing updated immune response, it is that the heterogeneous B Cell pool from the original-version can be reshaped to make a variant-tailored response out of the old response. Whether this includes "new" epitopes or not (more research is needed in the context of SARS-CoV-2 and Covid vaccines), these are neutralizing antibodies. So this is what "imprinting" means - the first response can be remodeled to make a like-new response. I discuss this in https://unglossed.substack.com/p/the-actual-imprinting-study and Johnson's WaPo article actually has some decent discussion of this.
"Training" seems to refer exclusively to his model where innate immune reprogramming is the only thing that can create long-term immunity. I don't get this. Anyway antibodies and even T Cell responses fade, inviting reencounter with the virus and reducing escape pressure. For this reason, I don't think it's really important if his model for enhanced infection is correct or not because the immune system doesn't keep antibodies high for long, so the question of whether the virus gets a foothold seems more mediated by innate immunity + T Cells no matter what.
As always, his model implies that antigenic shift should be a lot more visible, and misrepresents the progression from Delta to the Omicron siblings as corroborating evidence (all the Omicron siblings appeared simultaneously, they are not a product of immune pressure) https://moderndiscontent.substack.com/p/the-delta-to-ba4ba5-covid-pipeline
Thanks. I simply offered that recap as the kind of crap that is being promulgated to the plebes. It's so annoying that almost no credit is given to a couple of million years of evolution.
I think that’s part of the point of the power of language though. Put it into a box and make it a known quantity and you empower it with alleged predictive power. Saying “it’s OAS” is presuming the answer. I personally think it’s honest to say we don’t fully know yet if your immune system is going to be worse with future variants compared to the unvaxxed. There are negative signs and it might be accurate to say it’s unlikely the vaxxed are going to fare better, but every study has its limitations. And this is obviously compounded by the fact that there’s a strong profit motive to not find these negative effects.
All that seems reasonably clear to me thus far is that the vaccines provide nearly no positive value to the vast majority of the population and there are disturbing correlative trends in excess death that are collaborated by lots of anecdotal reports of injury. The rest will eventually come out in the wash. Whether or not it’s ever a matter of public record I would think depends a lot on all of us and being as accurate as possible without exaggeration is a strategy to avoid unnecessary damage from those who would oppose any of this coming to light in a meaningful way.
I think we're getting too caught up on trying to draw conclusions when the evidence isn't quite there for us. It's like drawing blood from a stone at this point. We argue that many of the studies are working against us, yet we can't immediately pull up studies and interpret them as if they are hiding something like Nicholas Cage in National Treasure.
I haven't been commenting recently because I feel like my comments will run minutes long and I would need to do a lot of my own research beforehand.
With that being said, I found it rather strange the level of repetition that came with the initial arrival of OAS onto Substack with many publishers invoking the religious subtext as if that religious subtext provides the hypotheses any credibility or any greater cultural power. If it's the latter, then we have a serious problem in which we are having the culture drive the science rather than have the science stand on its own merits.
When I posted my open thread a few months ago I posted it with questions that weren't meant to be rhetorical. They were questions that OAS had to address or acknowledge in some fashion. I got a lot of great answers, but many people sort of glossed (don't sue me!) over those questions and provided their own perspective sans addressing a few of the questions with respect to OAS. There were even a few commenters asking (and I'll say in good-faith) that if I can't quite explain OAS maybe it means that I don't understand it well enough. Even if this argument is true, I can also argue that OAS is a nuanced hypothesis that requires addressing several factors, and ones that can't be boiled down to the phrase, "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell". My god, I hate that phrase!
So without casting any aspersions to anyone, I do believe we have a widespread phenomenon of the Dunning-Kruger effect happening. Not in the sense that people who throw out OAS are low IQ or of low intelligence, but that those who speak of OAS may do so in a highly simplified manner, and when possibly pushed to examine it further they may pushback and criticize those with dissenting voices.
I suppose there's a bit of me that has been growing more distraught, as it appears more people would rather reach for conclusions rather than see where the evidence leads us.
I suppose on another note, we should address the current Ba.4/Ba.5 "pandemic of the vaccinated" that doesn't appear to have grown any legs. I guess we should see whether the predictions are modified to still be correct or if we address the failings of said hypothesis.
By saying you can't quite explain it would you mean the Francis/"originalist" version or the extreme/detriment version?
The Francis version is only difficult because he makes it seem like he is saying more than "childhood antibodies higher" and "new antibodies cross-react with old strains." And even when modern writers say it that way (though usually in jargon) and say "this was called 'original antigenic sin' by this old dude" the modern reader is still going to see, in their mind, an unwritten "detriment," and assume there's some big super-theory beyond the limited description.
But those two things are still all he's saying as far as what OAS "is" (really just the latter thing, but the former is taken as part of the evidence of the latter in a rhetorically manipulative way). And like I said the early research adhered to that, very focused on showing non-"specificity" of new abs or otherwise investigating mechanism (which was actually productive in terms of exploring cellular immunity).
As for the extreme/detriment version, that's harder to define because most people proposing it are just assuming a model has been constructed where there isn't one.
You missed your chance to use the phrase OG Ag.
As a 80s/90s child who never heard the phrase until the 00s, I refuse to accept that OG is not anachronistic.
Well, this was interesting but I was looking for the Obvious Alcoholics Society.
Sorry, the Oniony Australians Sauna is next door.
'a phrase that provoked the imagination of those who didn’t yet know what he meant by it.'
And also those who, despite reading endlessly about OAS, are still hopelessly confused. I understand and agree with your semantic arguments. Yes, it's a stupid name.
But what this plebeian would really like to know is: having been vaccinated against Wuhan, (or is it Delta)?, is my immune system going to be impaired when confronted with the follow-on variants, or not? Assuming no boosters.
Those who care can argue about the language. The rest of us need to proceed with tiling the bathroom floor.
And it remains that all Francis was describing by that name is “Having more antibodies to childhood strains” and "new antibodies cross-react." I don't see what argument there is for either thing being relevant to impairing immune response. Does having more antibodies to Wuhan impair response? Obviously not if "more" is "more than enough." Does "new antibodies cross-reacting to Wuhan" impair response? You are protected against both the new version and genetic reversions and future lab leaks from frozen old samples and recombs, that sounds good.
And so, everything else that is now described as "OAS" is still not real. But the tolerance thing remains sticky, and B Cell imprinting is actually relevant to that as I mentioned in my other post.
I suppose one baffling thing about OAS is that OAS has somehow stood in place of cross-reactive immunity, but now instead of arguing that adaptive immunity that provides an immune response that spans across variants and provides us with broad protection, OAS is now a danger to us. Which one is it then? It is protective, or is it a hindrance? It's a struggle when OAS is somehow supposed to be a phenomenon of having your cake and eating it too.
FWIW (not much!), here's today's WaPo take on it.
'The version of the coronavirus you first encountered may affect how you respond to later variants of the virus — and maybe how well future vaccines work. My colleague Carolyn Y. Johnson explains why, when it comes to viral infections, past is prologue. The phenomenon, sometimes called “original antigenic sin,” is well-documented in the case of the influenza virus: The version of the flu virus you first catch as a child influences how sick you get from influenza viruses later in life. It remains unknown if your first brush with the coronavirus will have a similar effect, but scientists are debating how a person’s first exposure to the coronavirus might affect the effectiveness of the omicron-specific coronavirus booster shots coming this fall.'
https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?trackId=59727c9aade4e21a847e2959&s=630936f51930ae1d20664869&linknum=1&linktot=41 (had to leave the tracking in to get to the right article)
That's a recap of the same article I give a so-so score to in this post. The recap is bad though, just hashing out the same fraternity dude version used to really sell the idea that there's some secret flaw in the immune system.
"well-documented in the case of the influenza virus: 1The version of the flu virus you first catch as a child 2influences how sick you get from influenza viruses later in life"
1 Not well-documented. As Monto et al. frequently point out, virtually none of the studies after the 70s even take childhood strain in mind "However, in terms of OAS, none of these studies reported an age cohort effect, which would be necessary for this to be termed OAS."
2 Again not well-documented, in part because it was never part of the original meaning - so by the time a detriment was added in, this was in the "childhood strain not considered era." And so you could say this clause applies to a handful of studies between 2009-2014 (showing protective effect from childhood exposure to more 1918-like strains) but is a handful "well-documented"?
So this is probably why Johnson's review gets a relatively positive review from me. It never just tries to bat the reader on the head with a "this is settled, totally known and proven, brah" line. Such as "This is not a crazy internet fantasy, but a well-observed limitation of human immunity." Nope. Nope. Nope.
Hi, thanks for your work on this. I wonder if you would mind helping me out with a shortcut - is Geert VB's 'train or drain' formulation reliant on the OAS concept that you criticise? I'm generally impressed with GVB's apparent knowledge and approach but anybody can be wrong and I'd like to get an alternative take.
Reading https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/infection-enhancing-antibodies-either-drain-or-train , yes, he is pretty explicitly invoking "OAS," and using pretty close to the original definition, but then incorporating it into his whole giant model.
However, when he claims that original-version antibodies prevent immune response against new epitopes, this is incorrect. What he is proposing is "masking," where naive B Cells don't see any new antigen because old antibodies bind well-enough (better than natural IgM). But responses do change after variant infection. Instead of masking preventing updated immune response, it is that the heterogeneous B Cell pool from the original-version can be reshaped to make a variant-tailored response out of the old response. Whether this includes "new" epitopes or not (more research is needed in the context of SARS-CoV-2 and Covid vaccines), these are neutralizing antibodies. So this is what "imprinting" means - the first response can be remodeled to make a like-new response. I discuss this in https://unglossed.substack.com/p/the-actual-imprinting-study and Johnson's WaPo article actually has some decent discussion of this.
"Training" seems to refer exclusively to his model where innate immune reprogramming is the only thing that can create long-term immunity. I don't get this. Anyway antibodies and even T Cell responses fade, inviting reencounter with the virus and reducing escape pressure. For this reason, I don't think it's really important if his model for enhanced infection is correct or not because the immune system doesn't keep antibodies high for long, so the question of whether the virus gets a foothold seems more mediated by innate immunity + T Cells no matter what.
As always, his model implies that antigenic shift should be a lot more visible, and misrepresents the progression from Delta to the Omicron siblings as corroborating evidence (all the Omicron siblings appeared simultaneously, they are not a product of immune pressure) https://moderndiscontent.substack.com/p/the-delta-to-ba4ba5-covid-pipeline
Thanks. I simply offered that recap as the kind of crap that is being promulgated to the plebes. It's so annoying that almost no credit is given to a couple of million years of evolution.
Very annoying. Thanks as well, it was a helpful link in terms of crystallizing just which part of the frat bro package I really find triggering, haha.
Total Immune Destruction Syndrome is actually very good. That's Immunology 101.
I think that’s part of the point of the power of language though. Put it into a box and make it a known quantity and you empower it with alleged predictive power. Saying “it’s OAS” is presuming the answer. I personally think it’s honest to say we don’t fully know yet if your immune system is going to be worse with future variants compared to the unvaxxed. There are negative signs and it might be accurate to say it’s unlikely the vaxxed are going to fare better, but every study has its limitations. And this is obviously compounded by the fact that there’s a strong profit motive to not find these negative effects.
All that seems reasonably clear to me thus far is that the vaccines provide nearly no positive value to the vast majority of the population and there are disturbing correlative trends in excess death that are collaborated by lots of anecdotal reports of injury. The rest will eventually come out in the wash. Whether or not it’s ever a matter of public record I would think depends a lot on all of us and being as accurate as possible without exaggeration is a strategy to avoid unnecessary damage from those who would oppose any of this coming to light in a meaningful way.
Great way of putting it Banta!
I think we're getting too caught up on trying to draw conclusions when the evidence isn't quite there for us. It's like drawing blood from a stone at this point. We argue that many of the studies are working against us, yet we can't immediately pull up studies and interpret them as if they are hiding something like Nicholas Cage in National Treasure.