If you don't like needles...

[Darmalus]

this is great news for you.

Vaccine patch may replace needles
By Emma Wilkinson
Health reporter, BBC News

The patch has hundreds of tiny needles
A vaccine patch could cut out the need for painful needles and boost the effectiveness of immunisation against diseases like flu, say US researchers.

The patch has hundreds of microscopic needles which dissolve into the skin.

Tests in mice show the technology may even produce a better immune response than a conventional jab.

Writing in Nature Medicine, the team of researchers said the patch could one day enable people to vaccinate themselves.

Each patch, developed by researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, contains 100 "microneedles" which are just 0.65mm in length.

They are designed to penetrate the outer layers of skin, dissolving on contact.

To test the technology, the researchers loaded the needles with an influenza vaccine.

One group of mice received the influenza vaccine using traditional hypodermic needles and another group were vaccinated with the patch.

Patches that had no vaccine on them were applied to a third group of mice.

Three months down the line the team found the patch appeared to produce a more effective immune response in mice, then infected with the flu virus, than a standard vaccination.

Apply at home
If proven to be effective in further trials, the patch would mean an end to the need for medical training to deliver vaccines and turn vaccination into a painless procedure that people could do themselves.

It could also simplify large-scale vaccination during a pandemic, the researchers said.

Although the study only looked at flu vaccine, it is hoped the technology could be useful for other immunisations and would not cost any more than using a needle.

"We envision people getting the patch in the mail or at a pharmacy and then self-administering it at home," said Sean Sullivan, the study lead from Georgia Tech.

"Because the microneedles on the patch dissolve away into the skin, there would be no dangerous sharp needles left over."

Co-author, Professor Richard Compans from Emory University Medical School, said the vaccine does not have to penetrate deeply because there are immune cells present just below the surface of the skin.

"We hope there could be some studies in humans within the next couple of years," he said.

While I have overcome my fear of needles as I grew up, I would not be sorry to see them less often.

[Molyneux]

I may not run screaming from them anymore, but I am still not fond of needles, and I very much hope that this proves workable.
I would think that this would be safer as far as infections go as well, given the lack of a big puncture wound in the skin.

[AMT]

This also aids in medical waste disposal with less needles being in them.

[Johonebesus]

Shots are quick. Blood tests, on the other hand, require that the needle stay in the arm for a couple of minutes while the vials are filled. Then there's the blood gases test, which requires arterial blood. It's usually drawn from deep inside the wrist, with the needle scraping against the bones as the nurse burrows and digs to find the artery. This news doesn't give me much comfort.

[Hamstray]

Three months down the line the team found the patch appeared to produce a more effective immune response in mice, then infected with the flu virus, than a standard vaccination.

How so? By what reason would this type of vaccination be more effective than a standard one?

[RowanE]

Hundreds. Of tiny. Needles.
If you don't like needles, you'll develop OCD-like behaviour.

[Darmalus]

Hundreds. Of tiny. Needles.
If you don't like needles, you'll develop OCD-like behaviour.

0.65 mm long, teeny-tiny, that's like those leafy spiky plants I keep finding the hard way when I go running.

They dissolve too, which makes me wonder what they are made out of.

[Ilya Muromets]

Hundreds. Of tiny. Needles.
If you don't like needles, you'll develop OCD-like behaviour.

These needles are, as mentioned, really tiny. If you looked at the patch you wouldn't even see said needles, and given their size they won't be triggering any pain receptors. It's likely that, if these are ever standardized, most people won't even realize that the patch pokes 'em with tiny little needles.

People with needle anxiety--which includes me--generally don't like being poked with needles we actually see. Something like this, with no conspicuous needles in sight? Not a problem.

[montypython]

Is there an issue with jet injection instead of needles for innoculations, btw?

[AMT]

Is there an issue with jet injection instead of needles for innoculations, btw?

Not that I know of, having not read anything against them nor having one myself. I would assume (uh oh!) that jet inocs still tear into the muscle tissue due to... it being a pressurized jet.

[frogcurry]

Never mind those who don't like being pricked, the biggest benefit will be in eliminating the cost of having a trained medical professional spending 30 seconds giving you a flu shot or other common injection. Potentially quite a big financial benefit, and it'd probably also get vaccine rates up noticably.

Hope that the needle pad thing is biodegradable, could be a lot of waste from them.

[Losonti Tokash]

This'll be great for kids. Poor bastards are terrified of them most of the time.

But goddamn, I just can't view adults that are scared of needles as anything other than gigantic wusses. I couldn't help but laugh at how exaggerated Stark's reactions were in Iron Man II whenever he tested his blood toxicity.

[Ilya Muromets]

Let's see you be completely calm about needles when one of your most vivid childhood memories is having two huge as fuck knitting needles embedded about a third-of-the-way into your left thigh.

[Losonti Tokash]

I'd say that's a pretty good reason to have an issue with needles (I have a similar phobia of knives). I'm talking more about people that have no comparable experience but just flip out at the idea of having their finger pricked for a blood sample.

[Corpsman]

I poke people with needles for a living. Patch is going to run me out of a job.

...Lol

[Corpsman]

Let's see you be completely calm about needles when one of your most vivid childhood memories is having two huge as fuck knitting needles embedded about a third-of-the-way into your left thigh.

I hate sticking kids with needles. They make you feel like such a fucking asshole after you do it. I've had kids run away screaming, and some of them take a swing at me.

[eion]

I hate sticking kids with needles. They make you feel like such a fucking asshole after you do it. I've had kids run away screaming, and some of them take a swing at me.

Isn't that what the lollipops are for? They can't bite you if they've got a sucker in their mouth.

[PeZook]

Hope that the needle pad thing is biodegradable, could be a lot of waste from them.

I don't see how they'll be a bigger problem than disposable syringes. Seriously, the fact it's a patch means that you can make it out of biodegradable material at all, unlike a syringe...so, another bonus to using them instead.

Nanotechnology rocks!

[Molyneux]

I'd say that's a pretty good reason to have an issue with needles (I have a similar phobia of knives). I'm talking more about people that have no comparable experience but just flip out at the idea of having their finger pricked for a blood sample.

Let's see: some people are phobic of blood, for a good (evolutionarily speaking) reason.
Some people are phobic of body invasion, to greater or lesser degrees.
I don't have much trouble with finger-pricks, but if you're saying that having a fairly large needle pushed into a vein isn't a legitimate reason for phobia, then you're just an idiot.

[PeZook]

Some people are phobic of body invasion, to greater or lesser degrees.

This - it's not that I can't stand the pain. I can't stand the relatively mild feeling of the needle moving around the vein, scraping at the sides, etc.

I had to sleep with a vein access valve once, and it was a horrible, horrible experience. My wrist still itches just from thinking about it.

[AMT]

I hate sticking kids with needles. They make you feel like such a fucking asshole after you do it. I've had kids run away screaming, and some of them take a swing at me.

Isn't that what the lollipops are for? They can't bite you if they've got a sucker in their mouth.

Which doesn't help if they take a swing at you.

I know when I was a kid that shots were EXTREMELY painful for me. Some of my earliest memories was of the pain being so bad it made me laugh-cry. (For some reason extreme pain makes me do that. I don't know why) And the pain afterwards was so bad I could barely move the arm because of the soreness.

Perhaps I was just unlucky, or sensitive, or w/e, but if other kids don't have to go through that, then good.

[Darmalus]

Is there an issue with jet injection instead of needles for innoculations, btw?

Outside of the StarTrek hypospray, I have never seen any jet injection device. I have never heard a doctor mention it, offer it, nada. If it wasn't for scifi shows, I would forget they even existed. There must be more problems than Wikipedia mentions for the device to see so little use.

[eion]

And the pain afterwards was so bad I could barely move the arm because of the soreness.

What the hell were they doing giving a kid injections in their arms? The muscle mass isn't dense enough, of course it hurt like hell! I got all mine in the butt until I was at least 10 or 12.

Is there an issue with jet injection instead of needles for innoculations, btw?

The biggest issue is one of cross contamination. The DoD stopped using in 1997 (Prior to that it was used during basic training inoculations and pre-deployment inoculations mostly). What can happen is that the injector may dislodge a small mass of material from one injectee and pass it to another injectee. You can minimize this by using one-use disposable tips, but that defeats the purpose of the "peace gun" injector: mass use with minimal between-use cleaning.

There are still some cool jet injectors for use in high needle-stick risk environments that use those one-use tips. The advantage here is that it's almost impossible to accidentally stick yourself while giving a shot to a struggling patient. The pain is also reduced (it depends greatly on the exact medication being injected) so they are useful in pediatric environments, especially since you can essentially hide the injector with a silly puppet.

But their biggest drawback is cost. They just cost more to buy and maintain than a simple needle injector.

[Corpsman]

The thing they don't tell you about the jet-injectors is that they hurt like a bastard. It felt like getting shot with a bb gun and my arms were sore for hours after the injection. The only real advantage I can see with those things is using them on people who are really that terrified of needles.

[Johonebesus]

And the pain afterwards was so bad I could barely move the arm because of the soreness.

What the hell were they doing giving a kid injections in their arms? The muscle mass isn't dense enough, of course it hurt like hell! I got all mine in the butt until I was at least 10 or 12.

That's just standard procedure. At least it was when I was a kid. Maybe it's to speed up the process, or to avoid accusations of inappropriate touching, though that shouldn't have been as much of a concern in the seventies.