# 6433
A fascinating report appears in the journal Science today, which looked at the unexpected recombination of two weakened herpesviruses used in poultry vaccines, that resulted in the generation of a more fit and virulent virus.
Attenuated Vaccines Can Recombine to Form Virulent Field Viruses
Sang-Won Lee, Philip F. Markham, Mauricio J. C. Coppo, Alistair R. Legione, John F. Markham, Amir H. Noormohammadi, Glenn F. Browning, Nino Ficorilli, Carol A. Hartley, Joanne M. Devlin
Ed Yong, writing in his excellent Not Exactly Rocket Science Blog for Discover Magazine has the details, background, and analysis of why this sort of unexpected merging of live attenuated viruses is unlikely to be a problem with human vaccines.
By all means, take a side trip to read Ed’s:
Chicken vaccines merged to form live viruses and caused outbreaks of irony
