WORLD SCIENCE
WORLD SCIENCE
"Long Before It's In the Papers"
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August 9, 2004
Special to World
Science
Many
vaccines
are
designed
using
a
weakened
or
dead
form
of
a
virus
in
order
to
stimulate
our
immune
systems.
The
idea
is
to
prepare
our
systems
to
fight
off
the
real
virus
when
it
comes.
But two recent studies warn that such vaccines, intended to prevent disease, may end up creating new and more dangerous ones.
In the June 22 advance online edition of the journal PLOS Biology, the University of Edinburgh's Margaret Mackinnon and Andrew Read report that they created more virulent strains of the malarial parasite Plasmodium by transferring the parasite, by syringe, among various mice immunized against it.
This probably happened because the most virulent parasites survived the vaccination-induced defenses, and further evolved within the environment of the host mice, they add.
And in the June 19 issue of the medical journal Lancet, New York Medical College's Stephen J. Seligman and colleagues warn that viral vaccines - based on "attenuated" or disabled viruses - could recombine, or mix genes with, with normal viruses to create new ones with undesired properties. They recommend an international authority be assigned to review new possible uses of vaccine viruses.
—EJL
WORLD SCIENCE
"Long
Before It's In the Papers"
