Making vaccine's is a tricky business. The fundamental problem is that you have to disable the pathogen (virus or bacteria) enough to make it not dangerous while leaving enough parts intact enough that the immune system will recognize it and produce an antibody. We don't have a complete understanding of the microbiology of most viruses and bacteria yet, which makes the production of an initial vaccine difficult and then it is complicated by the fact that both viruses and bacteria tend to mutate, necessitating new versions of existing vaccines once we do work out the basic biological mechanics of the pathogen.
My daughter has had the Prevnar immunization, which protects against the pneumococcal bacteria that causes bacterial meningitis. But if I recall, it only protects against 5 or 7 or so serotypes (different strains). I don't know how many serotypes there are but it is the sort of thing where they put their effort into getting the most common ones right and if you get an obscure one, well, hopefully the existing antibodies will be of some help when your body is trying to fight off the novel pathogen. Our understanding of the microbiology of pathogens is still quite immature but there is some great work being done. But the more we know, the more questions there are. Like the fact that there is a chickenpox vaccine now. Should we routinely vaccinate children against a virus that isn't lethal? Are we setting ourselves up for something bad down the road if we lose chicken pox as a low-level common infection? Will it be replaced by something much nastier? I'm not sure yet and I'm leery of over vaccinating just like we now know that we have done way too much over medication with antibiotics. Judah On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:33 PM, G Money <[email protected]> wrote: > > Makes sense....dunno why I thought that method would only fly for viruses. > Makes sense for bacteria as well. > > Why can we vaccinate against some viral and bacterial diseases, and not > others? For instance, could we produce a meningitis vaccine against both the > viral and bacterial strains? Anyone know? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:307056 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
