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Scientists Developing Contagious Vaccines Also Known As Bioweapons

By Politics

Scientists are now pursuing vaccines which are contagious to populations that haven’t been vaccinated. Currently the scientists state that it is for the spreading of vaccination against Ebola in animal hosts. At least that’s the goal of several teams around the world that are trying to bring this controversial research back that would develop these self-spreading vaccines. They claim that it’s necessary for wild animals because it’s very hard to locate and vaccinate each wild animal. A self-spreading vaccine in this population would offer a quick and easy solution.

But let’s stop and listen to the words they are actually using and think about how this technology could be used outside of this context. They are talking about a viral infection that can be spread from a vaccinated individual to a non-vaccinated individual. Now depending on what’s inside of that vaccine it could be a cure or a bioweapon. Is it a good idea for us to be creating vaccinations that spread disease? Even if the intent is to use it in wild populations to ensure that they no longer have that disease, can we ensure this technology will only be used for that purpose?

Currently researchers are looking on a self-spreading vaccine for Ebola, Bovine Tuberculosis, and Lassa Fever. Interestingly enough Ebola can be spread among human beings as well as tuberculosis. The researchers claim that this is so they can stop the animal reservoir for these diseases and thus prevent human beings from catching these diseases. How vaccines work though is by introducing a part of a virus or a deactivated part of the virus to the body so that the immune system can react. This is why vaccines do not self-spread. They are not a full virus or a full bacterium. To make a self-spreading vaccine means that it could spread to human beings.

Leaving out all of the ethical necessities of informed consent on a test subject, in this case humanity as a whole, what happens when these animal vaccines spread disease to humans? What happens if a human has a reaction to this self-spreading vaccination program? How would you even detect that it was from a self-spreading vaccination? Would cases of Ebola and Tuberculosis suddenly skyrocket?

Now advocates for these self-spreading vaccines say that this could revolutionize public health by disrupting the disease inside of animal reservoirs before they can affect humans. That’s a little bit of rose-tinted glasses when you think about the fact that it is self-spreading and once released humanity will literally have no control over it what so ever. “Once you set something engineered and self-transmissible out into nature, you don’t know what happens to it and where it will go,” says Jonas Sandbrink, a biosecurity researcher at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. “Even if you just start by setting it out into animal populations, part of the genetic elements might find their way back into humans.”

We do have some experience with self-spreading vaccines. Back in 1999 a veterinarian Jose Sanchez-Vizcano went to Isla de Aire which is an island off the coast of Spain. He and a team of researchers set to testing a self-spreading vaccine against two viral diseases for rabbits. Neither of these diseases infect humans. That means we don’t know if an animal population that is vaccinated with a self-replicating vaccine for a zoonotic disease which can infect humans will in fact infect humans later on still. The researchers tested a self spreading vaccine for rabbit hemorrhagic disease and myxomatosis. There were traditional vaccines for domestic rabbits for these diseases, but it was almost impossible to trap and vaccinate wild rabbits in a large enough number to stop this disease. There was a huge potential for science to help rabbit populations in the wild.

The team captured 147 rabbits, microchip them, vaccinated half of them, and then released them all. For the next 32 days the vaccinated and unvaccinated rabbits lived as they normally did. Then the researchers recaptured the microchipped rabbits that had not been vaccinated and found 56% of them had antibodies to the viruses. It had successfully proved that unvaccinated rabbits had garnered some protection from the vaccinated rabbits within their colony to these diseases. Although it was successful, some technicalities with the way the study was done effectively put any further studies on hold. This meant that pharmaceutical companies weren’t interested in investing in and researching this technology.

However since 2016 interest in funding for this technology has suddenly popped up. One can only imagine why. With so many in the public angry at people who refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine and large pharmaceutical companies looking for a guaranteed payout from governments, one can only see how this technology could be used against humanity and potentially turned into a lethal bioweapon. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

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