WASHINGTON (AP) - Two vaccine companies won $20 million in federal
contracts Tuesday to speed development of a safer smallpox inoculation.
Acambis Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., and Denmark's Bavarian Nordic A/S are
researching a smallpox vaccine that would be made with a modified version of
the virus in today's shots.
Today, the only smallpox vaccine available isn't safe for people with
weakened immune systems, and can even seriously harm some healthy people,
because it's made with a live virus called vaccinia that can spread through
the body. Scientists now are researching a modified strain of that virus
that doesn't replicate inside cells, and therefore shouldn't pose such a
risk.
The Department of Health and Human Services awarded the two companies
three-year contracts that set timetables for them to produce doses of
prototype vaccine, and perform safety testing first in animals and then in
people.
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-- Albert Einstein, letter to a friend, 1901
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-- 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?"
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