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I am excited, but I would rather wait until a Phase 3 result before getting my hopes up. Phase 1 is just to verify that the vaccine doesn't kill you all by itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial#Phases

It might also be good to remember some of the history around why this structure is in place.

The Battle to Beat Polio: http://youtu.be/qMRgQhbSyqs?t=18m50s

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In the case of vaccines, phase one trials tell you if there's an immune response to the antigen being used. This is a good first approximation of effectiveness.

The level of response could still be too low, but at least there's something happening.

Clinical trial phases with vaccines are less useful than they are with drugs. The major problems with vaccines are either they don't work (or don't work very well) or they cause (or are thought to cause) rare but serious side effects. Neither of these are normally able to picked up in phase 1 or 2 trials.

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