Science Fair Saturday

There's an anthrax vaccine now, so I guess that's pretty neat-o, right?

Take a ride on the Anthrax Cycle!

It's been around for a while now (I'm not talking decades, but months, certainly), and now, I guess some folks are frantic as they are puzzling out the ethics of testing the vaccine on children. Kids can't get anthrax from it, but adult testing has yielded some rare, but not-so-fun side affects.

This will cure your ginger!

I'm not really sure where I stand on the whole thing since 1. it doesn't look like it'd hurt kids, and testing would help scientists figure out the appropriate dosage for tykes, but 2. there's not really any immediate threat of your kindergartner getting bio-terrorized. Also, my opinion is not anybody's business (unless it's election day. VOTE!)


BUT reading articles on stuff like this always gets my brain wheels goin'! What vaccines have been tested on kids in the past? Any terrible doozies? How does vaccine testing work anyway?

So I did some research (not the fun, real kind, as I, unfortunately, am not some wave-of-the-future scientist. Didn't you know? I just write musicals. And this blog. And in my diary. No. You can't read my diary.), so I GOOGLED!

Fun Facts about Vaccine Development! YAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!

1. The first phase of vaccine development often consists of two to four years of tracking down antigens.

2. Growing bacteria in petri dishes sounds kinda fun.

3. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose poems I had to was lucky enough to read in college, introduced inoculation to Western culture when she told of having her kids inoculated against smallpox while in Turkey. Those clever Turks!

Happy Science Fair Saturday, dorks.