Frank, you don't go looking for a traffic accident
You drive, don't you? Here's an interesting story:
nationalpost.com
We're winning the war against germs
Michael Fumento
National Post
Friday, December 13, 2002
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It made page one of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and page two of the National Post. Yet it had nothing to do with terrorism, Iraq, nor even This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Instead it was a vaccine made by splicing a protein into what makes bread rise -- yeast. But what's going to rise dramatically with this development are life expectancies both here and especially in parts of the world already wracked by disease. This vaccine has the potential to prevent -- not just cure or treat -- more than a quarter million female deaths a year. Much more, it's a harbinger of the wonders that await us with biotech vaccines.
Developed by the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J., the vaccine actually contains four different antigens -- proteins that provoke the immune system into creating protective antibodies. All four protect against different strains of the most common sexually transmitted disease (STD), the human papillomavirus virus (HPV).
Two of the strains cause unsightly genital warts in both men and women. But the other two are thought to cause about 70% of all cases of cervical cancer.
In North America, regular pap smears have caused a dramatic 30-year decline in full-blown cervical cancer cases and resulting deaths, so that only about 1,400 Canadian women will contract the disease and 410 will die from it. But this prevention is terribly expensive, because it includes not only the cost of regular pap smears but also follow-up biopsies on women with abnormal findings, and other services associated with HPV infection. An effective vaccine would eliminate most of that expense.
Far more important, however, is that most countries can't afford such preventative care. As a result, cervical cancer killed almost 230,000 women last year. Aside from breast cancer, no malignancy kills more women.
Judged only by what it may directly accomplish, this vaccine could be a tremendous breakthrough. Yet considering its attributes, the potential goes far beyond its purpose.
Consider that it's only the second vaccine that can actually prevent cancer. The first was the original vaccine developed against hepatitis B, which often leads to cancer of the liver. Like the HPV vaccine, that for hepatitis B (also from Merck) is made from gene-spliced yeast.
Further, the HPV vaccine would be the first to protect against STDs. That said, the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that carried the Merck's HPV study also reported a major advance by GlaxoSmithKline in developing a vaccine that protects against genital herpes. By no coincidence, it too is recombinant.
For all this, what's most important about the Merck vaccine is that it's the wave of the future.
Traditionally, vaccines have come in two forms: Live but weakened, or killed. Both have pros and cons. Live vaccines usually confer longer and stronger immunity but sometimes produce the disease itself. Recombinants offer the best of both worlds by taking merely one gene or a few genes from a virus, splicing them into another organism, and replicating them.
Back in 1986 when the hepatitis B vaccine was introduced, the idea of recombinant vaccines was so new that Merck actually named it "Recombivax HB." Today that would be like Ford naming a new vehicle "The SUV."
That's because about 100 biotech vaccines are now under development. These include recombinant vaccines to combat influenza, AIDS, plague, allergies, fungal infections, cholera and other diarrheal diseases ranging from those causing mild discomfort to those that kill. There's now a recombinant vaccine that protects against both hepatitis A and B. The only approved vaccine for Lyme disease, spread by ticks, is recombinant. Researchers are developing a biotech vaccine against staph germs, which are the top cause of illness in hospitals.
Other targets within biotech's gun sights for which there are currently no vaccines include hepatitis C, West Nile Virus, and malaria.
Biotech vaccines will also be weapons in the war on terrorism. The current anthrax vaccine requires six injections over 18 months, plus an annual booster. A recombinant one scheduled to begin safety testing next year would confer immunity with only three injections.
Yes, we've all heard of those spine-tingling doomsayer books in which germs take over the world, such as Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague. But the thrills in Harry Potter are more realistic. Germs are going to lose, and nothing will do more to ensure that than biotech vaccines.
Michael Fumento is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. His next book, BioEvolution: How Biotechnology is Changing Our World, will be published in the spring by Encounter Books. |
