Well, I was studying the other night and trying to read my virology notes while on the phone with Joe and I mentioned something about vaccinations in cats and so I had to explain how vaccines work. With a crazy analogy.
The purpose of vaccinations is to prime the immune system for illness. A vaccine normally consists of either dead bacteria/viruses or bacteria/viruses that have been changed so that they can't cause disease. When you give a vaccine, the body reacts to it like it was really getting sick.
So its like this, basically you are showing your body's soldiers a picture of Osama Bin Laden and gave them a breifing. Now they know what he looks like and the next time they see him, your body's soldiers (antibodies that have been made against the bacteria/virus aka Osama Bin Laden) can attack and kill because they know all of the secrets already. The same thing can happen if you get the disease. You get the disease (a breifing), your body builds up troops specifically knowing what they need to do and then if you see Osama again you can kill him.
But then there are diseases that cause latent infections. These diseases are hiding out like Al Qaeda in their caves/cells. And sometimes if you give a vaccination/breifing for these diseases, they prevent you from getting sick but not having the disease. Then you become a persistant shedder. So now its like you've shown the antibodies/soldiers a picture of Osama Bin Laden and they know what he looks like and their just hanging out on their tour of duty waiting to see him. But then he's there. Only he's shaved his beard and took off the turban so the soldiers don't recognize him. He's in the background. He's the cook. The soldiers don't attack because they don't know its him. And he's multiplying--i.e. bringing in more Al Qaeda members and pretty soon they leave your body/country and move to the US, err...someone else's body. And there they carry out their terrorism plans because odds are that body/country's soldiers havn't seen a picture of him before.
[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on October 3, 2011.]
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