Edible Vaccines: Promises and Challenges

Vaccine Ideology has Crept into Food Delivery Mechanisms over Recent Years

The recent debate in the Missouri House of Representatives on HB 1169 which is transparency legislation for disclosure of genetic material in the food supply has raised the question: how far along is this whole field? Neither the US Cattleman’s Association nor the National Cattleman’s Beef Association has issued an opinion on HB 1169. Many farmers have been using the Merck Sequivity mRNA vaccine line in swine for several years. While the current products used in livestock are meant to protect the animals with short lifespans from immediate infectious disease threats, there is concern over the future use of food as an intentional means to vaccinate the consumer.

Kurup and Thomas published one of many papers describing the lofty goals of using foods, mainly plants, to deliver vaccines to humans in order to induce mucosal immunity. Protection in the sinuses, oral cavity, and GI tract is not strong from intramuscular injections unless the pathogen is invasive and blood born in severe cases.