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August 2001 
Potato Vaccine
(Ivanhoe Newswire) —
About 80 percent of the world's children are currently vaccinated against
six devastating diseases. Still, 20 percent go without — leading to about 2
million preventable deaths each year. Now, scientists in the United States
are looking for ways to make vaccines available to everyone, and it may
mean turning to an unlikely source.
In the United States,
vaccines wiped out once fatal diseases. In developing countries, where
medical care is often poor, vaccines can be too expensive and can't be
stored properly. Now researchers like infectious disease specialist Carol
Tacket, M.D., are looking for a way to overcome these obstacles. One way is
with a potato.
"They would allow
for the vaccine to be given without having to purchase expensive needles
and syringes. The vaccine wouldn't necessarily have to be refrigerated. It
could be produced locally near the target population," says Dr.
Tacket, of University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
The potato is
genetically modified to carry the vaccine and then patients eat it. So far,
results are positive in studies against the e-coli diarrhea and the
Norwalk virus.
 Dr. Tacket says, "Just
about everybody developed an immune response and it was very well
tolerated."
Volunteers who ate the
raw vaccine-carrying spud say it's relatively pain-free.
Study participant
Timothy Conn says, "There was not a whole lot of taste."
"It was sort of
[like] wet grass, sandpaper," says participant Colin O'Connell.
 Conn adds, "The grittiness,
the texture, you know, I'm not used to that."
While these plant-based
vaccines are still about 10 years away, researchers are optimistic that
they will one day be a reality and a way to save nearly 2 million people from
unnecessary deaths each year.
The diseases being
targeted in the study are all contracted by ingesting a bacteria or virus.
Researchers say it makes sense to deliver the treatment the same way.
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