The Future of Veterinary Vaccines (summary) - APVMA Science Fellows Symposium 2010

The vaccines that have been the foundation of preventative veterinary medicines until quite recently have not changed fundamentally for over 100 years. These vaccines have been developed by either chemically inactivating the infectious agent or its toxins (to yield bacterins, inactivated viral vaccines or toxoids) or by selecting naturally occurring mutants of wild type agents by passage in an unusual substrate for growth, a concept first developed by Louis Pasteur to create vaccines for pasteurellosis and rabies. The methods used to assess the safety and efficacy of these types of vaccines have generally stood us in good stead, although it could easily be argued that, while we have generally achieved a high level of safety, the assessment of efficacy has been somewhat variable, in part because some jurisdictions have assumed that the market would assess efficacy, and that therefore the focus of their due diligence should be on ensuring absence of harm.