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h00k | 1 year ago

There was a vaccine on the market but was discontinued in 2002 by its manufacturer. I don't know reasons why.

Pfizer currently has a Lymes vaccine study that I have some personal knowledge on that should be wrapped up in 2025: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

> About the VALOR trial VALOR is an ongoing randomized, observer-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial which has enrolled 9,437* participants 5 years of age and older to receive VLA15 or a saline placebo (1:1 ratio). As part of the primary series, participants receive three doses of VLA15 within the first year at months 0, 2 and 5-9, and one booster dose 9-12 months after completion of the primary immunization.5 The final primary series vaccination for participants occurs just before the peak Lyme disease season for the region. Participants will be followed for the occurrence of Lyme disease. The trial is conducted at sites located in areas where Lyme disease is highly endemic across the U.S., Canada and Europe and has enrolled volunteers with a cleared past infection with Borrelia burgdorferi as well as Borrelia burgdorferi naïve volunteers.

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icegreentea2|1 year ago

LYMErix was withdrawn because there were concerns it was inducing arthritis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/

There is lab data suggesting an interaction between LYMErix and certain genotypes potentially inducing arthritis, but the initial trial and post market surveillance data did not show any meaningfully elevated arthritis rates. However, post market surveillance was definitely hampered by the limited market uptake, fueled partly by the side effect concern.

Genetic testing/screening should be significantly cheaper today, and the higher prevalence of ticks as a concern would probably mean that LYMErix could probably be a viable product today, even if its arthritis side effect profile was real, as long as it was combined with screening.

SigmundA|1 year ago

It was around the time when vaccine and Autism mania was at its peak:

> Despite the lack of evidence that the complaints were caused by the vaccine, sales plummeted and LYMErix was withdrawn from the U.S. market by GlaxoSmithKline in February 2002, in the setting of negative media coverage and fears of vaccine side effects. The fate of LYMErix was described in the medical literature as a "cautionary tale"; an editorial in Nature cited the withdrawal of LYMErix as an instance in which "unfounded public fears place pressures on vaccine developers that go beyond reasonable safety considerations." The original developer of the OspA vaccine at the Max Planck Institute told Nature: "This just shows how irrational the world can be ... There was no scientific justification for the first OspA vaccine LYMErix being pulled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#LYMErix