Science/Medicine : Dispute Over Cold Vaccine

Austrian researchers report progress in development of a potential vaccine for the common cold, but another scientist cautioned that type of vaccine has been “incredibly disappointing” when used on humans.

Researchers from Sandoz Laboratories in Vienna said in the British science journal Nature they had artificially created a segment of a common cold virus and injected it into laboratory rabbits. The rabbits later developed antibodies in their immune systems that could ideally fight off 48 different strains of the common cold virus.

However, since rabbits do not get colds, it was impossible to determine if the antibodies actually worked.

“This looks nice on paper but unfortunately most of the antibodies created in this way fail to recognize a real virus,” said Ann Palmenberg, a professor of molecular virology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Her study was published in Nature.