I love science sometimes.

[theweaselking]

Malaria gets into people via mosquitos. Why not spread malaria *vaccine* the same way?

Comments

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[camilla-anna.livejournal.com]

That is wondrous. Or will be until they do it and the malaria vaccine mutates once it's in the wild. That's probably where the zombies will come from.

And, that is my favorite icon of yours. I am stealing it. I promise to only use it appropriately.

[captainflux.livejournal.com]

You realise, of course, that the antivax nutjobs are going to have a collective acute attack of batshit over this?

*gets comfortable with a large bowl of popcorn*

[unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com]

Um, call me crazy, wouldnt it be better to just give people the damn shots? Am i missing something from the article?

You are not crazy, Shirley.

[hypatiasghost.livejournal.com]

Yeah; the point of this study isn't to develop a vaccine that will actually be spread by mosquitos. It's to look at the way the immune response works, in the hopes of developing a better jab.

FTFA:
"This is not a vaccine" as in a commercial product, but a way to show how whole parasites can be used like a vaccine to protect against disease, said one of the Dutch researchers, Dr. Robert Sauerwein.

The reason 'vaccine' is in quotations is because they're not actually attempting to have the mosquitos deliver a vaccine. What they did was give people medicine that protects them from the blood-borne phase of the disease, and let infected mosquitos bite them. These people do not get sick from malaria, but develop an immune response to the parasites. Then, they stop giving them the protective medicine, let infected mosquitos bite them, and voila! Proof of concept -- whole parasite vaccination works.