Word: chanock
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Robert M. Chanock of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Dis eases proposed an unorthodox explanation. The inherited antibody, he suggested, actually makes babies more vulnerable to the potentially fatal dis ease. First, Dr. Chanock distinguished between several kinds of antibody ("im-munoglobulins"), which immunologists label alphabetically. Only type G passes the placenta and gets into the fetal blood; the others are developed later...
...under-six-months baby, suggested Dr. Chanock, still has little or no immunoglobulin A to fight off RSV. So the virus gets to his bronchioles and lungs. There, it wreaks havoc by causing 50 or more cells to merge into giant combines. Oxygen exchange is so impaired that the baby has asthma-like spasms. To make matters worse, said Dr. Chanock, the G antibody circulating in the blood just below the lungs' surface actually combines with virus particles to form more damaging complexes...
Although some virologists differed with Dr. Chanock about details, they agreed that the newly developed vaccine against RSV must not be given to infants under six months, as it appears to increase the risk and severity of pneumonia. A similar phenomenon is now being seen in connection with another viral disease: circulating antibody from killed-virus vaccine against measles also seems to make a child more susceptible to severe disease if he later receives live-virus vaccine...
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