Antibodies within mother’s milk passed on to her baby may well be the answer as to why childhood vaccinations have been so successful, and why science has battled so bitterly, and often with little success, in tackling chronic infections in adults according to the latest research from the Australian National University (ANU).

ANU’s Laureate Professor Rolf Zinkernagel says that high levels of antibodies passed on to children by their mothers may help boost the effectiveness of childhood vaccines.

“Protection against infections seems to depend on pre-existing antibodies at the time of infection. So if we don’t have any naturally occurring antibodies our immune system struggles to fight the infection. This has serious implications for how we think about old vaccines and how we apply ourselves to discovering new ones,” Professor Zinkernagel said.

Together with Profssor Zinkernagel’s collaborator, ANU’s Professor Peter Doherty, the research promises to aimed at combating the spread, which is sometimes very much deliberate, of misinformation.

“We may be barraged with deliberate misinformation with relation to areas like human-caused climate change. Who is telling the truth, and how do we separate the informed and sincere observer from the snake oil salesman?” Professor Doherty said.