Researchers Investigating Self-Boosting Vaccines

An anonymous reader writes "Vaccines, contrary to opinions from the anti-science crowd, are some of the most effective tools in modern medicine. For some diseases, a single shot is all it takes for lifetime immunity. Others, though, require booster shots, to remind your immune system exactly what it should prepare to fight. Failure to get these shots threatens an individual's health, and the herd immunity concept as well. Scientists are now looking into 'self-boosting' vaccines in order to fix that problem. Some viruses are capable of remaining in the body for a person's entire lifetime. If researchers can figure out a way to safely harness these, it may be possible to add genes that would create proteins to train the immune system against not just one, but multiple other viruses (abstract). This is a difficult problem to solve; changing the way we do vaccinations will itself have consequences for herd immunity. It also hinges on finding a virus that can survive the immune system without having uncomfortable flare-ups from time to time."

Re:Why not take it one step further?

[Dutchmaan]

This is Timmy's mother, Timmy won't be able to come to school today because he's feeling well and the other parents are afraid that his general well being will cause autism in the other children.

Re:What's going on?

[jamesh]

It's the weekend, yet Australia is mentioned only three times on Slashdot.

I think there was a holiday in the US a few days ago for some reason and I suspect they are still recovering from it so there just isn't much of interest happening over there.