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Researcher Mark Slifka and associates
from Oregon Health & Science University report preliminary findings indicating
that smallpox vaccines given even decades ago may still have surprising levels
of immunity. Their experiments involved exposing over 100 blood samples from
previously immunized people to the vaccinia virus, which is closely related to
smallpox and is used in the vaccine itself. Residual immunity was determined by
observing how many blood cells the vaccinia virus killed when it confronted the
tissue samples. Slifka et al. have observed signs which indicate that the
body's immune system still remembers the virus and mounts one of two responses:
antibodies that destroy the viruses before they infect cells, and T-cells that
kill infected cells.
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"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a friend, 1901
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William C. Jarvis, September 28, 1820
"What's the point of vaccination if it doesn't protect you from the unvaccinated?"
-- Sandy Gottstein
"Who gets to decide what the greater good is and how many will be sacrificed to it?"