Chris Buck stands barefoot in his kitchen holding a glass bottle of unfiltered Lithuanian farmhouse ale. He swirls the bottle gently to stir up a fingerbreadth blanket of yeast and pours the turbulent beer into a glass mug.
Buck raises the mug and sips. “Cloudy beer. Delightful!”
He has just consumed what may be the world’s first vaccine delivered in a beer. It could be the first small sip toward making vaccines more palatable and accessible to people around the world. Or it could fuel concerns about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Or the idea may go nowhere. No matter the outcome, the story of Buck’s unconventional approach illustrates the legal, ethical, moral, scientific and social challenges involved in developing potentially lifesaving vaccines.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/vaccine-beer-polyomavirus-chris-buck