Science Saturday OT: Vaccines
11 repliesTony does his best to make you smarter, despite the comments section.
Vaccines are one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of science. And with the covid vaccines rolling out in record numbers, interest in the topic of vaccines is higher than ever.
The invention of the vaccine is generally credited to Edward Jenner, who realized that women who worked with cows and got cowpox seemed to be immune from smallpox. After some testing he proved this was the case, in essence creating the world’s first vaccine.
A vaccine works by training the body to recognize the disease without actually giving it the disease. Once the body learns to recognize it, the immune response can be mobilized much more quickly, preventing the virus from taking hold. It’s like when police spread around a picture of a criminal suspect, so everybody knows to look out for them. Without this the body doesn’t know it’s a threat until it starts wrecking stuff.
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are mRNA vaccines, which add an extra step to the process. Instead of injecting a dead virus or part of the virus, this vaccine injects instructions on how to build a part of the virus (the m stands for “messenger”), and simply has the person’s cells the vaccine parts for the immune system to recognize.
At the theaters to see Godzilla vs Kong. I expect the graphics to be a little better than the old one.
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Watched it last night from the couch…
Getting first shot on Wednesday, hopefully don’t turn into a zombie. 😉
Not to worry, I got my 2nd Pfizer dose 10 days ago and it only turned me into a gnome!
And I keep telling you get out of my garden..!!!
This is a question, because I don’t know but can’t remember ever hearing abut one.
Has there ever been a modern vaccine (so we can not talk about “cures” like bloodletting) that was given & then later (years, maybe) it was found to have detrimental effects? Any that were stopped because of this?
The Swine Flu shot in ’76, but there were immediate issues surrounding that with GBS. Other than that I dont know of one. The Astra Zenica Covid shot has been rumored to cause blood clots, but the numbers appear to be below the statistically deviation.
my wife and I had the J&J shot. the after effects were terrible. She thought it was save to go out and eat all the time… I had used that excuse for a good year… damn.
See? The dangers are never really explained, are they?