The articles says exposure to tiny amount can "boost" immunity, which I assume means an immunity acquired earlier from a full blown infection (or vaccination).
The articles says exposure to tiny amount can "boost" immunity, which I assume means an immunity acquired earlier from a full blown infection (or vaccination).
Variolation for example, the predecessor to the world's first practice of vaccination (against smallpox) involved taking tiny amounts of live smallpox from scabs or pustules and giving them to people intentionally for a much lighter infection course that made them immune without the usually killing or horrifically disfiguring blow of a full smallpox infection. (look up photos of smallpox scars in survivors, warning, it gets graphic. Even many famous figures like Stalin were completely pockmarked by the scars of the virus for the rest of their lives, as you can see in unedited photos of the dictator)
It usually worked, but sometimes the patients got really sick anyhow and died. By the standards of the time, when fully a third of the population could expect to die from some epidemic disease or another, this was considered wonderful. Today it wouldn't be and thus the complexities of carefully calibrating vaccines.
I suppose one more dangerous thing with this, could be how popular anti vaccination ideas could become, when the anti-vaxxers start saying that vaccine is live virus
And that live pathogens are sometimes used should be known and discussed for the sake of clinical honesty and public health transparency. Either way, for any deeply dedicated anti-vaxxer, it probably wouldn't matter what they hear from even the best source. Once one's fixation on a concept becomes emotional or ideological, the subtleties and details of explaining contrary details stop mattering to them.
Taking random adjuvants consistently after minimal exposure to environmental antigens is more likely to give you deleterious allergies or issues associated with chronic inflammation.