Recently, a virologist from the National Cancer Institute made a vaccine out of beer using genetically modified yeast. Definitely up a Trash Talker’s alley, if you ask me.
Dr. Chris Buck detailed the experience in a series of posts on his own Substack, “Viruses Must Die",” and he’s also been featured in a very well-written article in Science News.
To give a short recap about his beer vaccine: Dr. Buck first observed in a mouse experiment that yeast carrying dead viruses could impart a vaccine-like effect when they ate the yeast rather than inhaled it or absorbed it from the skin. This finding implies that administering this GMO yeast as food might be an effective strategy to protect against polyomavirus, an infection deadly for immunocompromised people.
We typically consume yeast as bread and beer, but there’s also yeast in fermented foods (kombucha, soy sauce), and nutritional yeast. But what would be a suitable food to deliver this virus to the public?
Dr. Buck chose beer. And I think that’s the issue we’ll focus on today, though there are many issues I invite you to consider from his feature in Science, his own Substack, and other outlets covering this story.
[Does vaccine beer strengthen or weaken people’s confidence in public health systems? What about vaccine beer brewed outside of research ethics-approved studies and consumed in private? Is it appropriate for one highly educated virologist to drink his own home-brewed experimental beer and claim it’s in the name of safety? Food and medicine are regulated differently; whose jurisdiction does this fall under, and is it necessary to conduct a clinical trial even though this is a “food?”]
While it’s tempting for us to focus on the fact that Dr. Buck circumvented the research ethics approval system and brewed his vaccine beer in his own kitchen (drinking it in front of a reporter for his Science feature), there is another problem in his selection for how to deliver this vaccine.
Beer is Morally Loaded
Beer is a culturally significant part of human history. The oldest beers date back to 13,000 years ago as a ritualistic food for a nomadic tribe in the Middle East. For a time, beer was actually safer to drink than water because beer wort is boiled, killing off any harmful microbes. Today, beer holds up the economy, engaging stakeholders from agriculture, manufacturing, brewing, hospitality, and more. It’s is a critical part of the arts and culture, especially in settings like sports and music festivals.
But beer can also hurt you acutely, chronically, and psychologically. Alcohol poisoning kills. We’re only just finding out the long-term health effects of drinking alcohol at even one standard drink per day. Alcohol is now classified as a Group 1 carcinogen, the same as tobacco. The WHO has clear messaging based on recent studies that there is no safe dose of alcohol. Moreover, alcoholic beverages are expensive, so vaccine via beer may create financial stress or even widen the wealth gap.
Let’s not forget that alcohol is an age-restricted beverage, with purchasing being regulated variably state-to-state. Polyomavirus can be an especially serious infection in children. How could you tell a child—quite literally screaming in pain, as Dr. Buck recounts in a visit to a pediatric hospital— that he wasn’t old enough to drink vaccine beer because it had alcohol?
So, beer may seem like a playful, economically-relevant choice to deliver this vaccine.
What food would I have picked? Excellent question, but not the right one.