Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Stephen Hoffman Malaria Vaccine

Self-Experimenters: Malaria Vaccine Maven Baits Irradiated Mosquitoes with His Own Arm: Scientific American:

"Of the thousands of malaria-ridden mosquitoes that have bitten Stephen Hoffman over the years, he is most grateful to a batch of 3,000 that feasted on his arm in the mid-1990s. The swarming bloodsuckers had been subjected to radiation to weaken the malaria-causing parasitic Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites they carried. The result: he became immune to the disease that kills at least one million people yearly, most of them children, in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere."