[reliablereason]

> It is given as a nasal spray and leaves white blood cells in our lungs – called macrophages – on "amber alert" and ready to jump into action no matter what infection tries to get in.

Right and if that is such a good thing why are those macrophages not always on alert. I smell longterm cancer or similar.

[bob001]

> I smell longterm cancer or similar.

Or simply autoimmune reactions which can be devastating.

[alphazard]

Yeah this is more likely than cancer, and is a potential side effect of anything that stimulates the immune system, including real antigen-carrying vaccines.

[nrds]

Indeed, I wonder whether the vaccine content matters at all in current vaccines. We could probably just inject people with the adjuvants and get the same result.

[shiroiuma]

This reminds me of an episode in Star Trek: TNG's 2nd season, where Pulaski and Data visit a colony doing genetic engineering experiments on kids which created a super-virus.

[bsder]

It would be nice to have a dosage that lasts a couple of days for when you're flying or attending a conference.

That way, your immune system wouldn't be on continuous high alert, but you could give it an "Oy, wake up. Incoming pathogens." blast.

[jalapenos]

This. I don't think humans have evolved a brain - immune system pathway to prime the macrophage pump after you book a Ryanair.

[LeoPanthera]

If only Stanford University had asked you first!

[bob001]

If only you had read the article.

>There may also be consequences to dialling up the immune system beyond its normal state – raising questions of immune disorders.

> Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said the work was undeniably "exciting" but cautioned "we have to ensure that keeping the body on 'high alert' doesn't lead to friendly fire, where a hyper-ready immune system accidentally triggers unwelcome side effects".

> The research team in the US does not think the immune system should be permanently dialled up and think such a vaccine should be used to compliment rather than replace current vaccines.

[gdevenyi]

Autoimmune disorders

[marcosdumay]

The most likely, because it consumes energy and respiratory diseases take almost nobody from the gene pool.

What has no relation at all to what possible side effects this could have.

[b65e8bee43c2ed0]

there are many, many things our bodies could do (or not do) to greatly improve our health at no cost whatsoever.

[bob001]

That we think have no cost. The massive failure rate of drug trials and some famous cases of issues discovered only after wide scale deployment indicates we're not that great at knowing ahead of time.

The body is like legacy spaghetti code written by hundreds of teams of outsourced engineers. It mostly works. Just never remove any commented out lines or it may break.

[glial]

While possible, there are also many bodily processes that are finely tuned through eons of evolution, and destabilizing pressure leads to disorder. Sometimes it's difficult to know which are which (or at least I don't know).

[nradov]

Which things?

[amelius]

Or antimicrobial resistance.