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Malaria Vaccine, Via Mosquito

Posted by timothy on from the absolutely-nothing-can-go-wrong dept.

CodeShark writes "The AP is reporting that mosquitoes have been used for the first time to deliver anti-malarial vaccine through their bites. According to this article the results were crystal clear: 100% of the vaccinated group acquired immunity, everyone in the non-vaccinated control group did not. Those in the control group and developed malaria when exposed to the parasites later, the vaccinated group did not. Malaria kills nearly a million people per year, mostly children."

7 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Okay, I read TFA, what I want to know is by dr2chase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    how in holy hell did they get that past the human subjects review board? Athlete's foot and common cold is one thing, intentionally infecting your control group with malaria is something else altogether.

  2. This needs modding by Louse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did anyone else see that XSS?

  3. Terrible idea. by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This, if it really worked, would eventually create a million more deaths and vastly increased food shortages, poverty, suffering and children dying of starvation when the malaria population limiting factor is removed. We really must incorporate educational programs into vaccination programs that encourage people to have small families with the goal of stabilising population levels, and make condoms and contraceptives more available.

    Also I question the ethics of administering a vaccine in a way that people cannot resist it. It should be a basic right to refuse a vaccine, adn the only people that would effect is those who do not accept the vaccine. Why not just deliver the vaccine in a shot? sure a little more expensive, but, seems to be more ethical. This would allow the dose to be more precisely controlled as well with a mosquito there is no telling how much a person could get, and what if there is a long term adverse health effect? The idea of using mosquitos really is dangerous, seems to to be dicey and invention for crazy things to happen with mutations and so on, that might actually create some sort of disasterous environmental consequence.

    1. Re:Terrible idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      you sir are an idiot...

      In some areas there is a 50% child mortality rate from malaria...and in some cases that mortality includes both the unborn child and the mother. There are already food shortages and poverty in Africa which for the most part is due to the disease burden on people.

      The problem with Africa is no one wanted to due business there during the industrial revolution because of the disease burden there and this thing were there were limited natural resources. No infrastructure has been developed and hence little wide spread industry beyond South Africa.

      And why not make it a shot? Because nobody can harvest enough sporozoites to put it in a shot yet. Dumbass if they could they would.

    2. Re:Terrible idea. by Halo1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >

      Did you know that Africa could feed itself, and half the world if they simply stopped fighting. Went to modern farming techniques and stopped fighting?

      The situation is actually far worse than that. E.g., fairly stable countries like Burkina Faso could easily generate more money than they need every year with their cotton production, if it weren't for

      • subsidies by the US and European Union to their own cotton producers that keep the price of cotton on the world market artificially low
      • "free" trade agreements that forbid Burkina Faso to locally process the cotton and turn it into higher margin finished products

      If you ever have the opportunity, I'd strongly recommend you to watch Let's Make Money. Even if you think that you already have an idea about the kind of abuses that are going on, it really is an eye opener in many ways.

      --
      Donate free food here
  4. Next up, new AIDS vaccine is delivered by sluts. by falconwolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Slashdot had an article about how some prostitutes in an African country were immune to AIDS. When I searched I didn't find it but I found another where two Women in China were immune due to a mutant gene.

    Falcon

    --
    Should there be a Law?
  5. Re:Next up, new AIDS vaccine is delivered by sluts by repapetilto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can get a mutation in the gene for CCR5 which codes for a protein on the outside of the immune cells that HIV sticks to so it can enter and replicate and kill them which eventually leads to aids, actually like 10% of people descended from Europeans have this mutation, the further north you go the more common it gets if I remember correctly. It supposedly got passed on by the people who survived the bubonic plague and became more prevalent since people who didnt have that allele died off.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5#CCR5-.CE.9432