A_Shadow t1_iw7tvt6 wrote
Reply to comment by ghostfuckbuddy in Experimental Cancer Vaccine Yields Promising Results: NIH Finds Significant Tumor Regression by Shelfrock77
Vaccines are used to train your immune system against a specific target. That's all a vaccine is.
The Rabies vaccine is actually given to you after you are infected. Same with the Shingles vaccine.
So a vaccine being preventative or not has nothing to due with the actual definition.
ArgentStonecutter t1_iw8s4ho wrote
> Same with the Shingles vaccine.
They're giving Shingrex prophylactically now.
A_Shadow t1_iw9354d wrote
For people who never got chickenpox and got the chickenpox vaccine?
The idea of shingles is reactivation of the chickenpox virus that's lying dormant in your body for decades. If you never had chickenpox as a kid, then you can't get shingles.
Hence, if you never had chickenpox and got the chickenpox vaccine, you don't need the shingles vaccine. If you are unsure, then you get the shingles vaccine just in case.
ArgentStonecutter t1_iw9mz8i wrote
Who the hell remembers if they got chickenpox 50 years ago? I would call that prophylaxis rather than therapeutics still.
A_Shadow t1_iw9n8qw wrote
Most people actually remember, it wasn't a fun time for them and it was an unique enough disease that they remember it (say compared to the common cold).
Plus even if you don't remember, the doctor's office will also have records of the chickenpox vaccine.
ArgentStonecutter t1_iw9qdia wrote
50 years ago we were still getting the smallpox vaccine and measles was more of a thing. The measles vaccine was introduced in Australia in 1968.
A_Shadow t1_iw9rak3 wrote
? I think you might have responded to the wrong comment brother
ArgentStonecutter t1_iw9sq9e wrote
Nope. 50 years ago is early 70s and late 60s, there was no chickenpox vaccine, just smallpox as a general varicella vaccine.
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