China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
V
Published in Anton Sebastian, A Dictionary of the History of Medicine, 2018
Valli, Eusebius (1762–1816) Italian physician from Pistroia who was well known for his self experimentation on disease. He tried the efficacy of plague vaccine on himself and survived, but succumbed to yellow fever in Havana.
Critical Appraisal: Toxicities and Clinical Trials
Published in John K. Crellin, Fernando Ania, Professionalism and Ethics in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2012
John K. Crellin, Fernando Ania
We have emphasized that clinical trials are a particularly important area for critical appraisal. Much advice is available on how to go about this, such as through protocols established for the Cochrane Collaboration. There are also specific professional/ethical issues that occur at various stages in a clinical trial, which should always be looked upon as experimentation on humans. Although ethical issues (e.g., informed consent, appropriate gender representativeness, inadequate attention to patient's concerns that develop during a trial) have been given increasing attention since the 1960s, they are far from new. We cannot resist a suggestion that Sinclair Lewis’ book, Arrow smith (1925, and the movie, 1931) be visited to follow the saga of physician Arrowsmith's failure to pursue an experimental treatment. He gave all members of a community a plague vaccine rather than dividing, as requested, the community into subjects and controls (“I did the humane thing; I lost sight of science.”) Nowadays; much scrutiny exists in protecting controls in trials through the establishment of Ethics Review Boards.5 However, concerns remain about the quality of trials undertaken by complementary/alternative practitioners, especially in office situations. For instance, are subjects given adequate information to give consent? Do they need to have the research and consent form submitted to an Ethics Review Board as do private physicians in many jurisdictions?
Imperial health in British India, 1857-1900
Published in Roy MacLeod, Milton Lewis, Disease, Medicine, and Empire, 1988
This first direct intervention in public health, where earlier laissez-faire was the watchword, was not only violent and insensitive but, although unappreciated at the time, was also to prove scientifically inaccurate.72 The single most important factor contributing to bubonic plague was insanitation, which created conditions for rats and rat fleas. And overcrowding and squalor among the teeming poor in cities like Bombay were appalling.73 Deliverance from the public protests generated in Bombay by the plague measures, and from the panic among rulers and ruled alike, came from the new bacteriological science. Waldemar Haffkine, a Russian emigré research worker from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, whose successful anti-cholera vaccine trials in Bengal from 1893 had led the government to institute compulsory vaccination for troops and civil servants,74 was called upon for help, and by January 1897 he had developed an anti-plague vaccine which proved to have a success rate of 80-90 per cent. Haffkine personally conducted the inoculation programmes and made efforts to popularize vaccination, and urged government to exempt inoculated persons from compulsory measures and detention camps. After 1898 the politically unwise compulsory measures were given up. But public health policy continued to vacillate.
Immunogenicity and protection efficacy of enhanced fitness recombinant Salmonella Typhi monovalent and bivalent vaccine strains against acute toxoplasmosis
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2021
Fei-Kean Loh, Sheila Nathan, Sek-Chuen Chow, Chee-Mun Fang
Heterologous antigens could be plasmid encoded or chromosomally integrated for expression in live S. Typhi vaccine. Plasmids can express high levels of antigens, but they tend to impose unacceptable metabolic burden that probably causes eventual plasmid loss. As an alternative, antigens expressed via chromosomal-based gene integration are more stable since the deletion of chromosomal genes is less likely [James E. 8]. However, a single chromosomal gene copy generally reduces the antigen mass, thus expressing insufficient level of antigen to induce an immune response [10]. This is a concern when developing T. gondii vaccines that require multiple antigens to confer cross-protection against the parasite’s changeable life stages. Remarkably, the coupling of plasmid- and chromosome-based antigen expression within single live Salmonella vaccines revealed the potential of gaining stable and adequate antigen expression with high immunity activation properties. Galen et al. constructed an S. Typhi bivalent plague vaccine combining plasmid expression of the F1 antigen and chromosomal expression of LcrV antigen of Yersinia pestis that conferred full protection against lethal pulmonary challenge in BALB/c mice [11]. Following that, Sanapala et al. constructed a trivalent Salmonella Typhimurium delivering LcrV196 and Psn of Yersinia pestis encoded on plasmid and F1 encoded within the chromosome that induced high antibody titers and significant protection against bubonic and pneumonic plague in BALB/c mice [12]. In recent years, Salmonella Choleraesuis has also been adapted as live vector to deliver SaoA antigen and enolase antigen that can confer full protection against Streptococcus suis [13., 2020; 14]. The high immunogenicity of live Salmonella vector achieved has encouraged its application toward vaccine development against a variety of human pathogens including T. gondii.