Nobel Prize level achievement. I hope it can be distributed cheaply. An added side effect is that it will help end sickle cell anemia. The reason SCA is so wide spread is that carriers of the genetic marker are resistant to malaria and thus have a better chance of survival to reproduce.
SS and SC disease are way better at preventing malaria than this vaccine, though. And even SS disease is ... not actually that bad. Your RBCs are totally normal until/unless you go into an oxygen crisis (at which point they sickle), and when your O2 levels normalize, so do your cells. As opposed to malaria, where you get sick and die.
SS and SC disease are a remarkable bit of human evolution.
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Date: 2011-10-19 08:49 pm (UTC)And it's also crazy because I thought Malaria just lived in the body, popping up to kick you in the ass irregularly.
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Date: 2011-10-19 09:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-19 11:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-20 04:50 am (UTC)SS and SC disease are a remarkable bit of human evolution.