Mr Clearwater (director of the River Health Institute): The river suffers
regularly from a strange disease called redness : it is a red fish
proliferation with multiple pathogenic consequences. Due to rainwater
overflow the fishes are transmitted from a healthy reservoir where they
surprisingly caused no anomaly. When the fishes infest the river, they eat
algae and insects that purify the water. With less algae and insects, the
water is different and other animals and plants in the river suffer from it.
We have to eradicate the fishes from the river.
Mr Drugdesign : let's design an antifishotic. To avoid toxicity for other
non pathogenic fishes in the river, we just have to know the exact molecular
structure of the fish mouth, and we can design a poisoned insect that will
specifically fit the mouth of the virulent fish, so the other fishes will
not eat it.
Mr Vaccine : You will poison the whole river ! Bigger fishes will also eat
the poisoned insects, whatever their structure ! I have a better idea. Let's
breed a huge amount of red fishes in our experimental aquarium. We will
anesthetize them slightly, so they will not cause any damage, before
injecting them massively into the river.
Mr Drugdesign : Are you crazy ? Injecting attenuated fishes in the river !
How do you expect this to work ?
Mr Vaccine : That's easy. All the kingfisher birds in the neighborhood will
come and multiply above their usual number this summer given the abundance
and easy capture of their favourite resource. Next year, the greater number
birds will easily control the red fish proliferation.
Mr Drugdesign : I am afraid that you will need to inject fishes regularly to
maintain a sufficient number of kingfishers. We will not waste our time and
money breeding red fishes to feed these birds.
Mr Vaccine : Given the long life expectancy of the birds, I think an
anesthetized red fish boost every ten years will do the job.
This tale is to illustrate that vaccination doesn't need any signaling,
self/non self discrimination or cell cooperation if antigens are considered
as a food resource and memory as non synchronized variations of prey and
predators.
from http://www.heraclitean.com/hbg/essays/immunometab_sonigo/
