4 ms·

Vaccines are usually dead or mostly-dead or otherwise-modified things. It's not just low counts of live viruses.

by daxfohl 6y ago

SquareWheel 6y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine
- btilly 6y ago
  Your clarification was less correct than what you replied to. Vaccines are not all attenuated. Often they are killed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inactivated_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inactivated_vaccine for more on that.
  - sunopener 6y ago
    aka "poisoned" to death.
  - datameta 6y ago
    It's interesting that the word used for inactivated viruses is "killed" rather than, for instance, "destroyed". Destroyed might not be a better word choice because it may imply that the structure is completely taken apart but point being: (not to throw semantics into the mix just for kicks) does modern science consider viruses to be alive?
    - sukilot 6y ago
      > does modern science consider viruses to be alive? This is a (bad) philisophical question for people who do not understand the concept of "spectrum", not a scientific question.
      - datameta 6y ago
        I don't believe there is such a thing as a bad philosophical question. Perhaps some questions aren't yet worth the time investment to think about. When we engineer self-replicating machinery (or rather, before then) this caveat is worth defining.
        btilly 6y ago
        I disagree. Deciding where on the spectrum between non-life and life we declare something to be alive is endlessly debatable and non-actionable. The fact that in time technology will add more points on that spectrum does not change this fact.
- sunopener 6y ago
  aka "poisoned" to near-death
roywiggins 6y ago
The precursor to modern methods was to obtain a little bit of smallpox and inoculate yourself with it. It was vastly less deadly than being exposed in the normal course, though not really safe. It still demonstrated the principle, that a little bit of smallpox was quite a lot safer than being exposed to a lot of it. This is not a good idea generally, it worked on smallpox when there was no other option. Still, dose can absolutely make a difference in how deadly a virus is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation The first real vaccine was to inoculate with cowpox instead, which was safe for humans but induced immunity to smallpox as well. Modern methods are substantially safer, usually by entirely deactivating the virus before using it, but there are still some vaccines that use live virus (the oral polio vaccine is a live attenuated virus).

Vaccines are usually dead or mostly-dead or otherwise-modified things. It's not just low counts of live viruses.

SquareWheel 6y ago

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine

btilly 6y ago
Your clarification was less correct than what you replied to. Vaccines are not all attenuated. Often they are killed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inactivated_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inactivated_vaccine for more on that.
- sunopener 6y ago
  aka "poisoned" to death.
- datameta 6y ago
  It's interesting that the word used for inactivated viruses is "killed" rather than, for instance, "destroyed". Destroyed might not be a better word choice because it may imply that the structure is completely taken apart but point being: (not to throw semantics into the mix just for kicks) does modern science consider viruses to be alive?
  - sukilot 6y ago
    > does modern science consider viruses to be alive? This is a (bad) philisophical question for people who do not understand the concept of "spectrum", not a scientific question.
    - datameta 6y ago
      I don't believe there is such a thing as a bad philosophical question. Perhaps some questions aren't yet worth the time investment to think about. When we engineer self-replicating machinery (or rather, before then) this caveat is worth defining.
      - btilly 6y ago
        I disagree. Deciding where on the spectrum between non-life and life we declare something to be alive is endlessly debatable and non-actionable. The fact that in time technology will add more points on that spectrum does not change this fact.
sunopener 6y ago
aka "poisoned" to near-death

roywiggins 6y ago

The precursor to modern methods was to obtain a little bit of smallpox and inoculate yourself with it. It was vastly less deadly than being exposed in the normal course, though not really safe. It still demonstrated the principle, that a little bit of smallpox was quite a lot safer than being exposed to a lot of it. This is not a good idea generally, it worked on smallpox when there was no other option. Still, dose can absolutely make a difference in how deadly a virus is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation The first real vaccine was to inoculate with cowpox instead, which was safe for humans but induced immunity to smallpox as well. Modern methods are substantially safer, usually by entirely deactivating the virus before using it, but there are still some vaccines that use live virus (the oral polio vaccine is a live attenuated virus).