Altruistic vaccines

I wrote an article in today's Toronto Star about a novel way to fight Dengue Fever -- or potentially any other disease passed on by mosquitoes.

The idea is an "altruistic vaccine" that does nothing to help the person actually getting the shot. Instead, the person's blood is rendered poisonous to any mosquitoes who bite the vaccinated person -- making the little critters unable to spread the disease.

The vaccine is being developed at Queensland University, in a part of Australia with a fast-growing Dengue problem. Global warming is being blamed for its rapid spread. The Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation is funding the work.

All vaccines have some altruist qualities to them, ethicist Angus Dawson told me, in that governments fund vaccination programs to prevent the spread of disease. Altruistic drugs take that one step further by giving no direct benefit to the person getting the shot.

That much is in the story.

What I couldn't fit in was Dawson's observation that the research is an example of society continuing to look for technological solutions to problems with wider causes.

It would perhaps be more ethical, says Dawson, founding director of the Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele University in Britain and now a visiting ethicist at the University of Toronto's Joint Centre for Bioethics, to address the long-term, underlying causes of disease spreading in general -- such as poverty, lack of access to proper care and global warming.

 He's right, of course, but I won't hold my breath.

Comments

[deana]

For eons people have found ways to co-exist with insects, carnivores and other competing threats on this planet. At the 2009 point we should have a massive legacy to draw from, but we don't. What have we done instead? We have shunned all that has stood the test of time (the most recent was condemning the Native North American's knowledge of living) and reivented everything. Now we have to use each other as bug repellent and guinea pigs. This is right up there with eyeing one another for spare body parts. Ye gods....

I'm not impressed. There is a presence among us that has absolutely no idea of the spirit. Hopelessness has never before now been marketed for power and profit.

[Ask a Nurse]

Good post...really informative and broken sown to a simpler level for common non medical persons to understand the crux of the matter.