The last few weeks, we’ve been discussing some of the complicated history and science surrounding vaccination and immunity. The strategic and targeted defensive strategies employed by the immune system are by no means perfectly impregnable, but they represent several millennia of evolution under fire. Pathogens have always had a leg up on multicellular organisms—evolving more quickly and chaotically, unburdened by the constraints of form and function. They aren’t very sophisticated, but in terms of sheer brute force, there are already more viruses on earth than there are stars in the entire universe. We are besieged on all sides by these…
Comments closedTag: Immunity
So far, we’ve discussed the historical legacy of vaccines as man-made enhancements for our existing immune weaponry. And we’ve taken a look at some of the extensive defenses of the innate immune system that guard us day and night from the billions of natural viruses and bacteria roaming the earth. But like any fortress, there are vulnerabilities to be exploited. One way or another, pathogens can occasionally slip through and start using the body’s resources to replicate and cause major damage. In these cases, the immune system has to switch tactics from defensive to offensive. The first step is raising…
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For most of history and the long origin story of vaccines, we have known very little about the mechanics of how bodies defend against disease. The practice of variolation—purposefully exposing individuals to dried infected material to stimulate immunity—was borne out of the simple observation that people who survive sickness don’t tend to get sick again. The science of immunity didn’t really fall under much scientific scrutiny until the 19th century after Edward Jenner made his pivotal cowpox/smallpox vaccine discovery. Cowpox and smallpox were clearly different diseases with differences in severity, animal host, and mode of transmission. But, despite these differences,…
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A few weeks ago, we talked about antibodies and how they can convey immunity after an infection or a vaccine. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about antibody tests and whether they could be used to allow “immune” individuals to return to work. But there are a lot of misconceptions about these tests, what they actually tell us, and how they should be implemented. There is a persistent misconception that if an individual has antibodies, they are completely immune to reinfection. It is completely possible, even likely, that if you got the coronavirus and barely had any symptoms,…
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