Myth: Tobacco Plants Are Only For Smoking: Difference between revisions
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==Is there opposition to using tobacco plants to make vaccines? If yes, why?== | ==Is there opposition to using tobacco plants to make vaccines? If yes, why?== | ||
===2023: [https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/how-the-world-health-organization-helped-kill-a-promising-made-in-canada-vaccine/ How the World Health Organization helped kill a promising made-in-Canada vaccine]=== | |||
*"The World Health Organization (WHO) has championed the need for out-of-the-box thinking on vaccine production and supplies to protect the world. But when faced with that very situation, the WHO evoked a 2005 policy, and sentenced a promising made-in-Canada vaccine to a tragic death because of a minority link with a tobacco company...A year ago, officials with the agency refused to endorse a vaccine made by Quebec-based Medicago. It used a plant related to tobacco as the "factory" to produce virus-like particles that taught the immune system to fend off the virus that causes COVID-19...The Medicago technology was also widely seen as having great potential for creating both vaccines and antibody treatments for other conditions, including cancers, arthritis and multiple sclerosis. But the plants used in production are a cousin of the tobacco plant and were supplied by tobacco giant Phillip Morris, which was a minority (21 per cent) shareholder...One advantage Medicago's product had over some of the approved vaccines is that it doesn't have the same cold storage requirement as mRNA shots, and so "would have been more suitable for Africa and places like that," said Watts." | |||
=Suggested Studies and Articles to include on this page= | =Suggested Studies and Articles to include on this page= | ||