Report Indicates Bees Naturally Vaccinate Their Offspring

[IDemo]

Never again can the anti-vaxxer crowd claim that vaccinations aren’t natural: since, according to a recent article released in the Financial Express, a similar process of vaccination employed by humans can also be found in bees.

Scientists from several Universities – including Arizona State University, University of Helsinki, University of Jyvaskyla and Norwegian University of Life Sciences – collaborated on a study which studied a bee blood protein called “vitellogenin.” After fifteen years of research into the protein, specialists are finally saying they’ve discovered how it works.

The Queen of a honey bee colony needs worker bees to provide her with sustenance. These bees can pick up “pathogens in the environment” during their duties as royal pollen and nectar collectors. This pollen is then used by worker bees in the hive to produce ‘royal jelly’, which is meant for the queen. Unfortunately, any bacteria picked up in the outside environment can get to the queen through this jelly.

Any bacteria that gets consumed by the queen is digested and stored in the queen’s “fat body”, which the article compares to the human liver. Components of the bacteria “are then bound to the vitellogenin and carried via blood to the developing eggs.” This process effectively vaccinates the immune systems of these eggs, providing for more immune system strength once they are hatched.

http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/2015/08/02/report-indicates-bees-naturally-vaccinate-offspring/

[RichVRichV]

1. I'm sorry but this is not vaccination.

Not unless general immune funtions are now considered vaccination. Part of the immune system works by being exposed to pathogens and learning to recognize them so it can attack them. Vaccinations are targeted, not generalized. This system passes any pathogen markers it discovers along. This is akin to a mother passing her immune system to a baby through her breast milk until the baby develops an immune system of their own.


Vaccination work, we don't have to stretch things to prove that.

[DhhD]

2. What if the protein units are carried to the gut cells of the developing embryo and

injected in at the cell membrane?

[RichVRichV]

3. It's not the delivery system that's at issue.

It's the generalized nature of it. Vaccines are targeted at specific diseases, at least by the definitions that I've seen. This is a catch all for any pathogen recognized by the queen bees immune system.

It's largely splitting hairs as vaccines make use of the general immune function.