"The launching of the BCG vaccine was ...a gigantic dishonest commercial operation."
Dr. Jean Elmiger, Swiss doctor and homeopath
Since it was first developed in 1921, the BCG, or Bacille- Calmette-Guerin, vaccine has been given to over a billion people worldwide to prevent tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis was a huge killer of adults in the nineteenth century. In 1882 Robert Koch proved that the bacterium tubercle bacillus was the cause. Using it in killed or treated form to protect people from infection did not work, however. French bacteriologist, Albert Calmette (1863-1933) and his colleague, veterinary surgeon Camille Guerin (1872-1961) made a significant step forward when they found that placing bovine tuberculosis in a glycerine-bile-potato mixture caused it to grow bacilli that were less virulent. By 1906, through further subculturing, Calmette and Guerin produced a strain of living bacilli that were so weakened they could not produce disease but could still be used as a vaccine. They first tested their BCG vaccine on humans in 1921, and in 1928 it was used to successfully inoculate 116,000 French children.
In -recent years, more cases of tuberculosis are being reported alongside an increase in multi-resistant strains of the bacterium. This has led to trials of a new vaccine to complement the BCG vaccine. The MVA85A, contains a protein found in all strains of tuberculosis that aims to boost the response of T-cells already primed by the BCG vaccine. The new vaccine is being tested in South Africa's Western Cape.
