Science is routinely criticized for spending billions of dollars on useless and boring things like quantum string theory research or the mundane discovery of hundreds of planets in other solar systems, while neglecting to create anything useful.
Well criticize this, critics!
Looks like a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University have joined forces like Voltron to create something we can all get really excited about. The Dissolvable Vaccine Delivery Patch!
My lack of techno-naming creativity aside, there is some amazing science behind this thing. It’s even touted as being a more effective method of delivery than your traditional “sharp-pointy-object-jabbing-into-muscle” method! This short article explains it nicely ..
So, in the very near future you’ll go into the doctor to do your herd-immunity duty and instead of getting a round of vaccination shots, she’ll just slap a patch on your arm (or your ass, preferably?) and send you out the door. Brilliant. Even the staunchest anti-vaxxer can get behind that.
The future is now, people.
BoyInfidel
Ah, my Infidelic friend… I’m afraid even the staunchest anti-vaxxer isn’t going to be swayed by that. In fact, they’ll probably be more terrified of what might be lurking in the patch. After all, it isn’t the needles they fear, it’s the autism ions that are injected directly into the brain stem during even the most simple of vaccinations.
From the non-ridiculous perspective, however, I think this is awesome. I don’t have any research at my disposal, but I’d assume that the number of infections from needle pricks is ridiculously minimal and that this won’t have any real impact on the overall safety of the process of vaccination, but it makes it a lot less invasive, and anything that makes it easier to get people to vaccinate (when vaccination makes sense, obviously) is a good thing to promote.