There's a West Nile vaccine for horses--is there one for people?

[Senior citizen]

I heard the ad on the radio. I'm glad that horses can be protected. But I haven't heard anything about vaccines for people. Hmmmmm........

[Egalitariat]

1. I'm sure testing protocols are much more rigorous for human

vaccines than for horses.

[Senior citizen]

2. Well, there's that....

and then there's the fact that some horses are worth millions of dollars and most people are not.

I take it that's a no?

[bklyncowgirl]

3. West Nile vaccine for horses has been out there for a few years.

Like the lyme disease vaccine for dogs, the equine version was approved rather quickly. We vaccinated our horse the first year it was available since we're in New Jersey where some of the earlier outbreaks were.

Some people didn't want to use their horses as guinea pigs. There's a particularly sad story about a horse named Magic Weisner, a top race horse whose owner, a small time trainer who had finally bred her dream horse, was afraid to vaccinate. The horse came down with it a couple of days before a big race. He survived and returned to competition but was never the same.