Fear the Flu More than the Flu Vaccine
10.20.09 by Daniel Gaddy
I have previously written on this site about the Influenza A(H1N1) virus and the possibility, however unlikely, of this virus becoming a catastrophic pandemic. In my first post, I was concerned that the general public was being driven toward unnecessary panic by a “media firestorm” of negative “swine flu” news coverage. Now, however, I have fears of the exact opposite. It seems that people may not be taking this virus seriously enough! As I said in my first article, we really do not know how deadly this virus will be, and the truth is that there is nothing about this virus, particularly its genome, that suggests it will be a catastrophic killer. However, influenza is always deadly and it needs to be taken seriously.
It seems that these days people are more terrified of vaccines than the diseases they are designed to prevent. This is, at least partially, due to a massive campaign to convince people that vaccines cause autism. However, there has been absolutely no scientific evidence of a vaccine-autism link. None. In relation to influenza vaccines, people are worried about a variety of issues, not the least of which is the speed at which the vaccine was produced and made available. An article in the NY Times last week by Paul Offit, a professor and expert on infectious diseases and vaccines at the University of Pennsylvania, addressed this and several other myths about the H1N1 vaccine.
…Here are some of those myths, and why they’re wrong:
Cancer vaccines: a brief introduction
05.8.09 by Sharmila Pejawar-Gaddy
From the time of the first documented vaccine against smallpox by Edward Jenner, developing an effective vaccine to prevent deadly disease caused by existing or newly emerging pathogens has been the goal of many microbiologists and immunologists. With a single exception, that of the rabies vaccine, all vaccines developed previously have been prophylactic, meaning that they are administered in order to prevent the onset of disease. The concept of a vaccine has slowly evolved to currently include a therapeutic vaccine, meant to ameliorate an existing disease state by potentially strengthening an ongoing but not fully effective immune response against a pathogen. Further broadening of the concept of a vaccine has come about with the realization that in addition to eliciting an immune response where there was none, a vaccine could also be designed to change an existing immune response from one type to another. Most recently, vaccines are being considered not only for elicitation of immunity but also potentially for induction of tolerance [1, 2]. This concept has also increased potential targets of vaccines from diseases caused by pathogens to any disease that involves the immune system, such as cancer, autoimmunity and graft rejection. [3-6].
Challenges facing cancer vaccines
Choosing the right antigen and adjuvant are the sine qua non of an effective vaccine.
The “right” antigen: Antigens used in cancer vaccines should preferably be molecules that are different between normal cells and tumor cells ensuring that the immune response generated by vaccination will target for destruction antigen-bearing tumor cells and not normal cells [7, 8]. This requirement is satisfied more easily in the case of vaccines against pathogens because their antigens are all foreign to the host and thus immunity generated against them, in most instances, does not cross-react with normal host tissues. In cancer, most antigens are derived from mutated or modified self-proteins against which there is often a certain level of immune tolerance. This creates particular challenges for the appropriate design of vaccines that have to overcome this tolerance in order to elicit anti-tumor immunity without autoimmunity [9].
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