Researchers Prem Bhalla and Mohan Singh of Melbourne
University are working to develop a vaccine to treat hay fever and other grass
pollen-related allergies, which affect about 25 percent of the worlds
population.The patent for the
potential vaccine, which would consist of an annual shot before hay fever
season, is owned by the researchers and the university, but Heska Corp. has been
licensed to sell the product.The
vaccine includes genetically modified rye grass protein, which reduces allergic
responses in highly allergic people while boosting the immune system.Forty people participated in a test of the
vaccine, and a larger test on a few hundred Australians is in the works at St.Vincents Hospital in Melbourne.The vaccine could reach the market in three
years to five years.
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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?"