No More Needles!!
This one’s a plea for more pleasant consultations. In other words: I never want to be scared to death again when visiting the doctor.
When I recently had a routine check at my GP, he noticed that my immunisation protection against Tetanus bacteria (given by a combined Td-Polio vaccine) had expired. He smiled maliciously – and made way for his nurse who came along with SUCH A HUGE AND HORRIBLE INJECTION GUN…
Phew! I barely survived it. Now I’m safe from infections as well as injections for the coming five years. However, what then? Avoiding doctors and needles but running the risk of falling ill by tetanus?
Why has Big Pharma so far failed to develop Td Polio vaccine alternatives such as oral and nasal vaccination?
Recent research offers at least two additional possibilities.
Firstly, how about a “vaccine plaster”? A study recently published by Greg Glenn and Sarah Frech (Iomai Corp., acquired in May 08 by Austria’s Intercell) reports promising results for patches that vaccinate travellers against diarrhoea (“Use of a patch containing heat-labile toxin from Escherichia coli against travellers’ diarrhoea: a phase II, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled field trial”, Lancet 2008, 371(9629):2019). Other groups are testing this vaccination way on Alzheimer’s disease for a while.
Wow, glittering – just stick a small plaster to people’s skins!
Another way to escape nasty nurses with huge needles would be nasal vaccination – studied or yet developed against RSV, HIV, Alzheimer’s, Haemophilus influenzae, Flu, etc etc etc.
Why, for the world, haven’t they developed a smooth and gentle Td Polio vaccine, yet? Or have they already? Who knows?
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