Vaccines: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Take So Long To Develop
Jacob M. Appel (MD JD MPH HEC-C DFAPA) is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, where he is Director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry, Assistant Director of the Academy for Medicine and the Humanities, and Medical Director of the Mental Health Clinic at the East Harlem Health Outreach Program. He also teaches graduate students at Albany Medical College’s Alden March Bioethics Institute. Prior to joining the faculty at Mount Sinai, Jacob taught for many years at Brown University and at Yeshiva College, where he was the writer-in-residence. Jacob is the author of five literary novels, ten short story collections, an essay collection, a cozy mystery, a thriller, a volume of poems and a compendium of dilemmas in medical ethics. He is Vice President of the National Book Critics Circle, co-chair of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry’s Committee on Psychiatry & Law, and a Councilor of the New York County Psychiatric Society.
Overview
Why Do Vaccines Take So Long To Develop
A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, often made from weakened forms of microbes. It stimulates the body’s immune system to recognize a particular disease as a threat, destroy it, and to further recognize and destroy any of it’s microorganisms that it may encounter in the future. The administration of vaccines is called vaccination. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases, and widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the restriction of diseases such as polio, measles, and tetanus from much of the world. Unfortunately for all of us in 2020 and fearful of the current pandemic, it takes a long time to develop vaccines. The time period “18 months at best” is often cited, and in this presentation we’ll discuss why that is.
Learn more about vaccines by checking out other great videos at OneDayU, including ‘The Flu Epidemic Of 1918, ‘From Page To Stage’ & ‘Hamilton: Fact or Fiction’ all on-demand now.