Again, this looks at genetics as opposed to outside environmental factors.  I think this is great news, not so much because it promises a cure or treatment, but rather that it looks to understand autism better.  The treatment is a by-product.  This is what basic research is good for.  It gives you a foothold of understanding to complex and puzzling problems.

Autism Treatment: Researchers Identify Possible Treatment for Impaired Sociability

ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2010) — Eastern Virginia Medical School researchers have identified a potential novel treatment strategy for the social impairment of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), an aspect of the condition that has a profound impact on quality of life.

"Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders are either disinterested in social interactions or find them unpleasant. They often don't understand what other people are thinking or feeling and misinterpret social cues," said Stephen I. Deutsch, MD, PhD, the Ann Robinson Chair and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. "Sadly, persons with autism spectrum disorders are often painfully aware of their limited sociability, which can lead to profound feelings of sadness and frustration."

As part of their research, EVMS scientists verified that a specific mouse strain, known as the BALB/c mouse, is a valid animal model of the limited sociability seen in persons with ASD. In the presence of another mouse, BALB/c mice move as far away as possible and do not interact as normal mice do -- just like people with autism often avoid making social contact with other people.

This finding gave researchers a way to test whether an existing medication can alter the function of certain receptors in the brain known to affect sociability and help the animals be more at ease around others. The medication used, D-Cycloserine, originally was developed to treat tuberculosis, but previous studies showed, by chance, that it might change social behavior. In preliminary studies at EVMS, the medication appeared to resolve the Balb/c mouse's deficits of sociability; it behaved as a normal mouse would when placed near another.

Dr. Deutsch will discuss the research at EVMS' Quarterly Autism Education Series at noon, Dec. 14, in the school's Hofheimer Hall auditorium.

EVMS' laboratory studies with the Balb/c mouse led its investigators to hypothesize that D-Cycloserine could ease the impaired sociability of persons with autism, such as avoiding eye contact and personal interaction. Those traits can severely limit the possibility of employment and independent living for someone with autism.
"What makes this important is you might have someone with a 125 or 130 IQ who's unemployable" because of their social impairments, said Maria R. Urbano, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

Dr. Urbano is moving this promising research from the laboratory directly to patient care by starting a pilot clinical trial of D-Cycloserine in adolescent and young adult patients with autism spectrum disorders. The trial will show whether the medication, which is already known to be safe for use in humans, has similar effects on the sociability deficits of persons with autism as it did in the mice. Her research is supported by a grant from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation.

Bad Astronomy: BREAKING: BMJ calls Andrew Wakefield a fraud

A note from Dr. Plait that I found to be a bit of good news for reality based people.

BREAKING: BMJ calls Andrew Wakefield a fraud

This is HUGE: The BMJ, an online medical journal, has accused Andrew Wakefield — the hero of the modern antivaccination movement — of being "a fraud".

The skeptic and medical community have been hammering Wakefield for years; his study linking vaccines and autism was shaky from the start, and he suffered a series of humiliating defeats last year: the Lancet medical journal withdrew his paper, he was struck off the UK General Medical Council’s register, and was found to have acted unethically.

Of course, the word "fraud" implies intent; when writing about Wakefield I had my suspicions, but always wrote as if he were just wrong, and not deliberately lying to vulnerable parents.

But deliberate fraud is what he’s now accused of. Brian Deer, an investigative journalist, has written a multi-part series on the BMJ site which slams Wakefield. Fiona Godlee, BMJ’s editor-in-chief, also writes about this… and just to be clear, she uses the word "fraud" nine times in her editorial. Not surprisingly, it’s been picked up by several news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and ABC.

Deer has been on Wakefield’s case a long time, and has been critical in exposing Wakefield’s shenanigans. Wakefield and the antivaxxers have attacked Deer many times, but their accusations are as hollow as the claims of links of autism to vaccinations. And let’s be clear: vaccines don’t cause autism.

Deer has long shown that Wakefield had a lot of financial incentive to create a fear of vaccines, including lawyers paying him to find a link to autism, as well as Wakefield developing his own version of a measles vaccine. From CNN:

According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine and three never had autism.
"It’s always hard to explain fraud and where it affects people to lie in science," Godlee said. "But it does seem a financial motive was underlying this, both in terms of payments by lawyers and through legal aid grants that he received but also through financial schemes that he hoped would benefit him through diagnostic and other tests for autism and MMR-related issues."

Click Here to Read the Rest of the Post.

Greg Laden: What is meant by "mosaic evolution" and other matters

Greg Laden has another wonderful post on his ScienceBlog page.  Well worth reading the whole thing.  Again, I am usually very concerned at how poorly the general public understands what the theory of evolution even states.  Most of what people think is part of the theory isn't.  As a matter of fact, most of what people think are part of the theory are just lies told by denialists.  That is why it is incumbent upon education and individuals to fight for the truth as opposed to a rehash of lies and fables...

What is meant by "mosaic evolution" and other matters

Category: Evolution • Evolutionary Biology
Posted on: January 3, 2011 12:10 PM, by Greg Laden

A discussion of misconceptions in evolution ... about missing links, or great chains of being, or teleology (the idea that evolution is goal-directed) has got to be the most fun you can have with your pants on. Pursuant to this, let's sharpen and clarify our evolutionary theory mojo by considering the concept of "mosaic evolution" ... what is it, and what isn't it?

Of course, the concept of mosaic evolution, meant to clarify how evolution works, is often itself misunderstood. From Wikipedia:

"Mosaic Evolution is the concept that major evolutionary changes tend to take place in stages, not all at once." .. well, sort of, but that is not the main point and it is not well stated. Continuing, "...It is a pattern in evolution ..." "a" pattern? I wouldn't have said it that way. It is more like a general characteristic of macroevolution ... "... in which the rates of evolution in one functional system vary from those in other systems." .. like, different rates of mutation? of selection? No, no, that's not it, it's about timing, not rates "...For example, in hominid evolution, the dental system, locomotor system, and neurological system, evolved at markedly different rates." Almost. These differed systems have different histories. They do not co-evolve (see below). The word "rate" is ill advised in this context. I'll explain shortly.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

There are still people who deny evolution.  This mystifies me.  Again, if evolution was not true, then the fact that a 19th century Victorian Englishman came up with it, and somehow managed to have pretty much every discovery in biology, medicine, zoology, etc. support him borders on the ridiculous.  So I read with interest this article:

Three Billion-Year-Old Genomic Fossils Deciphered

ScienceDaily  — About 580 million years ago, life on Earth began a rapid period of change called the Cambrian Explosion, a period defined by the birth of new life forms over many millions of years that ultimately helped bring about the modern diversity of animals. Fossils help palaeontologists chronicle the evolution of life since then, but drawing a picture of life during the 3 billion years that preceded the Cambrian Period is challenging, because the soft-bodied Precambrian cells rarely left fossil imprints. However, those early life forms did leave behind one abundant microscopic fossil: DNA.

Because all living organisms inherit their genomes from ancestral genomes, computational biologists at MIT reasoned that they could use modern-day genomes to reconstruct the evolution of ancient microbes. They combined information from the ever-growing genome library with their own mathematical model that takes into account the ways that genes evolve: new gene families can be born and inherited; genes can be swapped or horizontally transferred between organisms; genes can be duplicated in the same genome; and genes can be lost.

The scientists traced thousands of genes from 100 modern genomes back to those genes' first appearance on Earth to create a genomic fossil telling not only when genes came into being but also which ancient microbes possessed those genes. The work suggests that the collective genome of all life underwent an expansion between 3.3 and 2.8 billion years ago, during which time 27 percent of all presently existing gene families came into being.

Eric Alm, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Biological Engineering, and Lawrence David, who recently received his Ph.D. from MIT and is now a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, have named this period the Archean Expansion.

Because so many of the new genes they identified are related to oxygen, Alm and David first thought that the emergence of oxygen might be responsible for the Archean Expansion. Oxygen did not exist in the Earth's atmosphere until about 2.5 billion years ago when it began to accumulate, likely killing off vast numbers of anerobic life forms in the Great Oxidation Event.

"The Great Oxidation Event was probably the most catastrophic event in the history of cellular life, but we don't have any biological record of it," says Alm.

Closer inspection, however, showed that oxygen-utilizing genes didn't appear until the tail end of the Archean Expansion 2.8 billion years ago, which is more consistent with the date geochemists assign to the Great Oxidation Event.

Instead, Alm and David believe they've detected the birth of modern electron transport, the biochemical process responsible for shuttling electrons within cellular membranes. Electron transport is used to breathe oxygen and by plants and some microbes during photosynthesis when they harvest energy directly from the sun. A form of photosynthesis called oxygenic photosynthesis is believed to be responsible for generating the oxygen associated with the Great Oxidation Event, and is responsible for the oxygen we breathe today.

The evolution of electron transport during the Archean Expansion would have enabled several key stages in the history of life, including photosynthesis and respiration, both of which could lead to much larger amounts of energy being harvested and stored in the biosphere.

"Our results can't say if the development of electron transport directly caused the Archean Expansion," says David. "Nonetheless, we can speculate that having access to a much larger energy budget enabled the biosphere to host larger and more complex microbial ecosystems."

David and Alm also went on to investigate how microbial genomes evolved after the Archean Expansion by looking at the metals and molecules associated with the genes and how those changed in abundance over time. They found an increasing percentage of genes using oxygen, and enzymes associated with copper and molybdenum, which is consistent with the geological record of evolution.

"What is really remarkable about these findings is that they prove that the histories of very ancient events are recorded in the shared DNA of living organisms," says Alm. "And now that we are beginning to understand how to decode that history, I have hope that we can reconstruct some of the earliest events in the evolution of life in great detail."

The figure shows the evolution of gene families in ancient genomes across the Tree of Life. The sizes of the little pie charts scale with the number of evolutionary events in lineages, slices indicate event types: gene birth (red), duplication (blue), horizontal gene transfer (green), and loss (yellow). The Archean Expansion period (3.33 to 2.85 billion years ago) is highlighted in green. (Credit: Lawrence David)

Today's Lesson: There is no such thing as a "Missing Link"

A "favorite" term of many who would deny evolution is to ask about "missing links".  This is a red herring.  There is no such thing.  It's like looking at a vast river or ocean, and asking someone to pick out the one drop of water that started it.  It just doesn't make sense.  Of course, with the information coming out about the Denisovans, I'm sure scientifically illiterate buffoons will spout off in the media.

I am reposting an article from Greg Laden about this (of ScienceBlogs).  He has quite a few things to say about the issue.

Falsehood: Is it ever OK to use the term "Missing Link"?

Today's falsehood¹ is the idea of "The Missing Link." You've heard about The Missing Link. You'll hear that some palaeontologist has discovered something and they tell us it is "The Missing Link." Often, it is a supposed "link" between some ancestor of humans (a fossil ape, a monkey, whatever) and us humans. And often, you'll also find that when the press reports a "missing link" the science blogosphere erupts with a torrent flowing over the phrase and the concept, about how there really is no such thing as "The Missing Link," or that this particular report of such a link is spurious, or something else bad.

This is one of the great things about the blogosphere. In the old days, reporters would use terms or phrases that were inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise annoying and the rest of us ... the scientists and others with direct interest ... would cringe. If teaching a class at that moment, we might have ranted to our students about how we don't like the term or phrase. But today, with the blogosphere up and running in all its glory, we find a totally new phenomenon: The mis-users of terminology get very publicly raked across the coals like so many burning marshmallows. Bwahahaha!!!

This can be powerful and it can be real. For instance, last year, a new and very cool fossil (a new genus, Darwinus) was discovered and called a "missing link." The blogosphere went nuts, and the finders and reporters of Darwinus got totally raked like marshmallows over the coals. Around the same time, a hominid-related research project was reported with the term "missing link" used in a way that fostered a certain degree of blogspheric ire, and again, there was raking. So, when more recently a fossil that in any reasonable person's view could actually be called a missing link was reported, nobody used the term "missing link." Too much bad blood ... marshmallow blood ... had been spilled over the term. No one was going near it this time.

And that, of course, got me thinking. Was there now a consensus that the term "missing link" was always wrong, always incorrect, that there was no such thing as a missing link, and that using the term did little other than making it clear that they ... the users of the phrase ... are stupid marshmallows? I knew this could not be entirely true. I knew this was wrong partly because I have seen the term "Missing Link" used correctly, and I understood it to have a potentially accurate, if somewhat fluffy and not critically important, meaning. Well, the meaning is critically important but using this phrase to represent that meaning may not be important. I also knew something was up because during this last round of missing link bashing some very smart and well educated people were saying things about the concept that were partly true and partly incorrect. They were throwing the marshmallow out with the ashes, as it were. And during the course of this discourse, it dawned on me that "[Fill in the blank] is the missing link!" and "There is no such thing as the missing link!" are BOTH falsehoods. And when that happens, I go to work, because I write about falsehoods and stuff.

The term "Missing Link" is actually central to evolutionary thinking, and Darwin referred to the concept, although often using different words ("intermediate link" for example). "Linking forms" both interested and vexed Darwin. If enough intermediate links could be found between two established species, were they really different species? If evolution proceeds by tiny incremental changes, why does the fossil record not display the intermediate links? He addressed these questions with a number of suppositions, but we now understand that the rate of physical evolution is often variable, with very little visible change occurring for long periods, and rapid change occurring for short periods, and thus difficult to see in the fossil record.

Evolutionary stories are often about adaptive change over time, in which a feature changes in its function, or a new feature emerges. These stories were addressed by Darwin using a combination of fossil evidence, biogeography and comparison of modern species, and information from development (later, DNA would be added as a primary source of evidence). But sometimes, there was a step that must have occurred but that was not indicated by any of these lines of evidence. There would be a species, extinct or not yet discovered, that filled the gap in the sequence of events. These were not always actual historical events, but often simply a sequence of variants that demonstrated the possible modes of transition from one form to another.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

Just the Vax: Source of CA Measles Outbreak

A post from Just the Vax.  The key take away is that the entire measles outbreak could have been prevented if not for one irresponsible quack!  First he lies about it not mattering (it does!), then he dismisses legitimate health practices.  The guy is a world class denialist pushing a dangerous agenda...

Ho! How did I miss this?

A poster asked in the comment section of our blog, whether the index patient in the San Diego measles outbreak had been a patient of "Dr. Bob" Sears. I recalled that Bob had been asked that directly on his board:

San Diego meales outbreak by San Diego mommy - posted on 3/26/2009

Someone told my that the child who started the San Diego measles outbreak last year was one of Dr Bob's unvaccinated patients. Is that true? That is so sad for the families affected by the outbreak, especially for the babies that were too young to be protected by the vaccine.

and Bob had answered in his usual flippant and evasive manner:

Ya, she wanted the MMR, but I wouldn't give it to by Dr. Bob - posted on 3/27/2009

So, it's totally my fault that the outbreak happened.

No, seriously, I do know who the family is and have interacted with them. I'll leave it at that, since it doesn't actually matter if they were actually my patient or not.

Seth Mnookin, the author of the soon to be released "The Panic Virus" pointed me to an Orange County Register piece that is much more candid than Dr. Bob:

An unvaccinated 7-year-old boy traveled to Switzerland and unknowingly contracted the virus. Almost 100 children (including babies who were too young for the MMR vaccine) were quarantined or hospitalized after they were exposed at the pediatrician’s office, Whole Foods or day care. In all, 11 children caught the measles. As it turns out, the boy who spread measles is a patient of Dr. Bob Sears

(my bold)

Dr. Bob himself downplays the severity of the situation in his 2008 blog by saying:

The recent measles outbreak (if you can call it that) in San Diego last month,

(my bold)

Fact check for Dr. Bob:

A recent study by researchers on the role of vaccine refusal in this outbreak was staggering: 839 people were exposed, 11 additional measles cases were reported (all in unvaccinated children); one infant, too young to be vaccinated, had to be hospitalized. At a time when the state of California is in devastating financial straits, it cost San Diego serious health care dollars: $10,376 per case, for a total of $124,517 (and the hospitalized infant's bill was nearly $15,000). Forty-eight children too young to be vaccinated were quarantined for several weeks, meaning parents had to miss work and wages at an average cost of $775 per child.

In his blog, Dr. Bob claims:

Fortunately, all cases passed without complications, as is usually the case with measles.

Lost in the depth of his own board is the reality check by Wilbert Mason, MD

Minimization of the effects of measles by Wilbert Mason MD - posted on 4/3/2008

As a pediatric infectious disease physician I feel I must comment on statements made in your March 27th commentary on the New York Times article. First, you infer that the cases in San Diego did not constitute an outbreak ("...if you can call it that..."). This is a highly contagious infection that spreads by small droplets that remain suspended in a closed room for over an hour. Indeed, 4 of the cases acquired the infection just by being in the pediatrician’s office at the same time as the first case. Three of these were infants and one of them had to be admitted to the hospital for dehydration. 

Elsewhere you have observed that “all of the cases of measles passed without complications, as is usually the case with measles”. Let me share with you our experience with measles at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles during the measles epidemic in 1990. We diagnosed 440 cases between January 1st and June 30th. Of these cases 195 (44%) had to be admitted for one or more complications of measles. We documented the complications in all 440 cases and they included 63% with ear infections, 45% with diarrhea, 39% with dehydration, 36% with pneumonia, 19% with croup, and about 3% with other bacterial infections. Three children died all of pneumonia. Measles is not a trivial infection as you inferred. We would not be having a debate about vaccines at all if people realized the tremendous costs in suffering and human life we incurred before vaccines became available. To adequately protect a population against measles >90% of the population must be effectively immunized against the disease. If individuals defer vaccines as you suggest we will rapidly fall below that level putting large numbers of infants and children at risk of an outbreak if measles is introduced into the community. This is a free country but we should all feel some responsibility to our fellow citizens and their children.

Thank you Dr. Mason, that says it all, really, about the irresponsible behaviour of Dr. Bob Sears (and the patients' parents who believe him).

About.com: Science Denial for Beginners

Normally I would put this over at my personal blog, but if you look at the methodology and roots of the anti-vax pro-disease movement, you see that they are cranks of the same order as many other denialists.  I thought this article would be a good one to share with folks here then, since one of the denialist targets is mentioned directly in the article.

Science Denial for Beginners - How to Deny Science

Denialism is growing problem in America today. We large numbers of citizens who are in denial about one or more basic fields of science: evolution, vaccinations, climatology, etc. Denial is a means by which people hold on to ideologies that are threatened by reality and preserve a sense of control over a world they cannot directly manage. Every form of denial tends to make use of the same tactics. This is may be because no matter what the topic, denialism stems from common mental processes.

1. Conspiracies Everywhere!

Being a denialist means not only being in a minority, but knowing that you are in a minority. You can't be an effective denialist if you don't understand that most people, and especially those with any sort of authority, disagree with you. Denialism requires that you be able to effectively explain this and the best way is also a time-honored one: it's a conspiracy!
No matter who disagrees with you and no matter what reasons they offer, the "real" reason is always that they are part of a massive conspiracy against you. There is a nefarious plot afoot which is designed to suppress the truth in the service of some ideology — an evil one, of course. This makes you a brave warrior fighting for truth, justice, and the people.

2. Cherry-Picking Evidence

It may become depressing to keep finding evidence that supports the conspirators' case, but if you're persistent enough you're bound to stumble across little nuggets of information which, if presented just right will appear to support the real truth. Yes, it's strange that the truth wouldn't be more obviously supported by the evidence but this is just one more sign of the extent to which the conspiracy against the truth has been successful. The lack of obvious evidence is proof that the world needs you to cherry-pick any evidence you can find.

3. Logical Fallacies

If you allow your arguments to be limited to the rules of logic, you'll be playing by the rules of the conspirators — and when you do that, you're almost guaranteeing that you'll lose. That would be unacceptable! You have a duty to truth that far outweighs any minor importance that logic might have. This means that if you think you can better make your case with a logical fallacy, then you shouldn't hesitate to do so. Most people don't have a clue about logic or logical fallacies anyway, so the chance that anyone will notice is small. Convincing more people of the truth is what matters, not how you do it.

4. Fake Experts

Despite the fact that all the most important authority figures are part of the evil conspiracy against you, it's only natural that you'll develop some envy for the credibility that their authority brings them. You can counter this by creating your own fake experts — and it's OK to have "fakes" since it's really in the service of a "truth" that's being suppressed. Most people don't know the different between legitimate experts and fake experts anyway, so what's the harm? It's better to use fake experts who have no real authority or expertise than to let the truth be silence any longer.

5. Impossible Standards

Given the size and power of the conspiracy against you, it would be unwise to play fair. Remember that the conspirators are try to suppress the truth and that it's your job to stop them. You shouldn’t make it easy on them by giving them easy standards of evidence or logic to meet. Instead, you should make the standards impossible, always making things harder if they ever appear to be coming close to the demands you place on them. The harder you make things on the conspirators, the harder it will be for them to maintain their lies.

6. When in Doubt, Encourage Doubt

Sometimes you won't be able to convince people of the truth, but you can at least get them to doubt the conspiracy that is so popular. Preventing them from being blindly convinced of the lies spread by the conspirators is itself a victory! Get people to believe that the so-called "authority figures" don't all agree with each other. Get people to believe that there is equal evidence for both sides. Prey upon people's sense of "fair play" by hyping the importance of teaching "both sides" of any debate. It doesn't matter whether you really believe any of this; what matters is that the interests of the truth are furthered.

Vaccine Times: Qualifications? Schmalifications!

A bit of an opinion piece in prose.  Something that I have been an advocate of for a long time.  Suppose I could add a line about asking a bad actress, and former playboy bunny, for medical advice?

Qualifications? Schmalifications!

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT SHELLITY.BLOGSPOT.COM

Because there’s no such thing as a Masters of Pretending to be Useful.

Would you want a clown to check your teeth? A vet to fix your car?
A rectal surgeon mixing cocktails at your favourite bar?
Would you fire your accountant and use tap dancers instead?
How about a chaplain messing ‘round inside your kiddie’s head?

Would you ask a mime to paint your house? A chef to groom your pet?
A famous escapologist to fly a jumbo jet?
Would you ask a Weimaraner for directions to the station?
Or a farmer’s wife and mother for advice on vaccination?

Would you trust a pimp to cut your hair? A nun to make your tea?
A prima ballerina to re-format your CV?
Would you trust your local chippie to negotiate world peace?
Or a self-proclaimed clairvoyant to advise the state police?

When a child needs trauma counselling, he doesn’t need a priest.
See a doctor for good health advice, or clinic nurse at least.
Even dogs help murder cases more than useless psychic woo,
So if you need help, choose somebody who’s got a frikkin’ clue.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT SHELLITY.BLOGSPOT.COM

Vaccine Times: 4-year old NY boy dead of flu-related pneumonia

Again, if the anti-vax pro-disease nutters had any empathy, they would be at every single one of these funerals...  Instead, folks like us who know what real science says about vaccines mourn the unnecessary loss of life.

4-year old NY boy dead of flu-related pneumonia

A 4-year old New Rochelle boy has died of a flu-related pneumonia infection, according to the Westchester County Health Department. The boy fell ill in November; he was previously healthy and had not not received the flu vaccine this year.

“Any death is tragic, especially in one so young,” said Dr. Cheryl Archbald, acting commissioner of health. “The best protection we have against influenza is the annual flu shot, which is recommended for individuals six months of age and older.”

The flu sounds innocuous however, in some instances it can lead to life-threatening complications, pneumonia being one of them. Vaccination is the best protection we have against the flu. Please refer to the CDC website about the flu, or my previous FAQ blog entry about it.

Our hearts and thoughts go to the family of the little boy; we are very sorry for your loss.

Vaccine Times: New Meningitis Vaccine Brings Hope of Taming a Ravaging Illness in Africa

I love it when science does things like this.  There are millions of people that just don't see any hope, and most are doomed to die young, or lead horribly crippled lives.  No one seems to care, and pretty much any other segment of humanity has nothing for them.  And then there is science!  And the thing is, with our understanding of evolution, these sort of advances are actually possible.  If we didn't use evolution as a bedrock of biology, none of this would be possible.

New Meningitis Vaccine Brings Hope of Taming a Ravaging Illness in Africa

READ THE FULL ARTICE AT NYTIMES.COM

By CELIA W. DUGGER

Published: December 4, 2010

JOHANNESBURG — For over a century, epidemics of bacterial meningitis have swept across Africa, arriving with the dry harmattan winds to kill with terrifying speed. But on Monday, a drive starts to inoculate tens of millions of West Africans with a new vaccine in what scientists hope will be the beginning of the end of ravaging meningitis epidemics.

The aim is for these immunization campaigns to spread from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east, bringing the disease under control and saving an estimated 150,000 lives by 2015 in a belt of 25 nations that girds the continent.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are still needed to accomplish that goal, public health officials say. But the meningitis vaccine itself is a milestone in developing inexpensive vaccines against neglected diseases that afflict poor countries, experts say.

More than a million cases of meningitis have been reported in Africa over the past two decades, and the vaccine works against the group A meningitis strain that causes more than 8 out of 10 cases on the continent. Moreover, it costs less than 50 cents a dose. In the United States, Novartis and Sanofi Pasteur market a single dose of meningitis vaccines against multiple strains of the disease for $80 to $100.

“Wow, that’s remarkable!” exclaimed Dr. Gregory A. Poland, head of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, when he heard how little the new vaccine would cost.

Bill Gates, whose foundation largely financed the endeavor, contrasted the undertaking with the development of vaccines for measles, smallpox and polio.

“All those things were created because rich people got sick,” he said in an interview. “This is the first vaccine that went through the whole process where there was no rich world market, and it had to be optimized at a very low price.”

The meningitis vaccine relies on a technology that was devised by researchers at the Food and Drug Administration and donated by the United States government at the cost of only token royalties. It is being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, a major vaccine producer, and it was developed independently of the major American and European pharmaceutical companies.

READ THE FULL ARTICE AT NYTIMES.COM