FOR UK farmers, it is the worst nightmare: a return of the foot and mouth disease that in 2001 devastated the nation’s agriculture. Added to this is the bitter realisation that the virus must have escaped from one of two premier laboratory facilities for combating the disease.
The incident has rekindled questions about the safety of existing vaccines against foot and mouth, which are made from killed viruses. In addition to the possibility of viruses escaping during manufacture, there is a risk of failing to kill all the viruses in a batch. There are, however, new “synthetic” vaccines under development,…
