by Kate Raines
Here’s the quote, as provided to The Washington Post: “To me, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t use imperfect vaccines,” says Andrew Read, Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and Entomology and Eberly Professor in Biotechnology at Penn State University, “Let’s say we become certain that a malarial vaccine is going to drive the evolution of more dangerous malarial parasites. That just means we have to be aware of how to avoid transmission.”1
Does that send shivers down your spine? Or perhaps you are just shaking your head at the arrogant comment by a scientist casually dismissing the consequences of widespread use of a vaccine that will “drive the evolution of more dangerous malarial parasites.”
For now, the concept of “leaky,” or imperfect vaccines, is only acknowledged to be a problem in farm animals. Read’s study, published in PLOS Biology, evaluated the vaccine used against Marek’s disease, a viral, herpes-like illness encountered in chickens.
Historically, it was a “mildly paralytic disease”…