Vaccinations & Drugs

Question 1

What do vaccinations do?

Answer 1

They involve making an individual immune to a disease - they are protected against it before being infected. This reduces the spread of pathogens by herd immunity.

Question 2

How do vaccines make an individual immune?

Answer 2

Vaccines contain a dead or inactive form of the pathogen which stimulates the white blood cells to produce antibodies complimentary to the antigens on the pathogen.

Question 3

What are advantages of vaccination?

Answer 3

• they have eliminated many diseases and reduced the occurence of many
• epidemics can be prevented through herd immunity

Question 4

What are disadvantages of vaccination?

Answer 4

• not always effective in providing immunity
• bad reactions in response to vaccines can occur

Question 5

What are antibiotics and painkillers?

Answer 5

Antibiotics are medicines that kill bacterial pathogens inside the body.

Painkillers only treat the symptoms of the disease, not the cause.

Question 6

How is bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics?

Answer 6

Mutations can happen during reproduction resulting in certain bacteria no longer being killed by antibiotics. This means they survive and reproduce and the population of resistant bacteria increases.

Question 7

How do we prevent the development of resistant bacteria strains?

Answer 7

stop overusing antibiotics

Question 8

What tests do drugs need to go through to ensure they are safe?

Answer 8

preclinical testing - using cells, tissues and live animals

clinical testing - using volunteers and patients
- placebo = one group of patients is given real drug and the other is given the placebo so the effect is accurate.
This can be done single-blind (only doctor knows) or double patient (neither doctor or patient know)

results are then peer-reviewed by other scientists