First, who is Katalin Karikó? She is the primary scientist who showed how mRNA can be synthesized to create a vaccine. Why is that important? This technology enabled the COVID19 vaccines, which recently carried the world out of a pandemic. So Karikó’s impact and legacy are tremendous. What’s more is that she has a meaningful, inspiring life story that overcame the odds both in her native Hungary and in the halls of academe in America’s…
Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day. As those around me have probably picked up on, making an HIV vaccine has become one of my causes. In the quickest vaccine development ever, we made a COVID vaccine in a number of months, but it’s been almost 40 years since AIDS came to light, you say… Why haven’t we developed an effective HIV vaccine when COVID’s was made so quickly? For one, COVID has significantly less mutations.…
Pandemics were on global leaders’ agendas before 2020, but since no global catastrophe happened since 1918, most did not prioritize these concerns. I hope that will not happen as much going forward. Preventative work has gained a new life. Bill Gates, co-founder of both Microsoft and the philanthropic Gates Foundation, uses his privileged, bird’s-eye view to organize what work can be done to avoid the “next pandemic.” Though humanity has moved onto other challenges, doing…
Most Americans, heeding the news in 2020-2021 during the coronavirus pandemic, have some bits and pieces about how the “war” against the coronavirus was waged. Very few (yet) have a comprehensive view. Enter Borrell’s The First Shots. In it, he aims to provide a first-draft of a history describing the vaccine’s development. Resulting is an engaging and educational narrative that will inform generations to come. With many actors, Borrell tellingly provides “A Cast of Characters”…
A casual perusal of social media will demonstrate an active debate about vaccines in contemporary society. Many cite (relatively rare) side effects and disregard abundant scientific studies about vaccines’ effectiveness; these people argue that they should have a “choice” over whether to admit a vaccine in their bodies. They do not heed arguments that herd immunity protects the herd better – that eschewing vaccines hurt us all. In this sociological work, Larson addresses how these…