Earlier quoted context omitted.
>This shouldn't be downvoted, it's true. I knew I would be when I posted. I accept the consequences of my post. >There's nothing wrong with creating good drugs and therapies, and this looks cool, but if it doesn't stop transmission it's literally not a vaccine. I have 2 shots, I believe in these shots, but misrepresenting them as something they are not has been dangerous. No doubt it casts shadow upon their value.
It's problematic to be pedantic about something that isn't true. A vaccine causes an immunity response. A therapeutic cancer vaccine is a vaccine because it relies on an immunity response, not because it prevents the spread of cancer. Vaccinations are often the best method of preventing a infectious disease but not all vaccines prevent contagion.
But then I'm confused because couldn't we then consider, for example, vitamin D a vaccine? It's more commonly understood as a prophylactic - but then what's the difference between a vaccine and a prophylactic?
Just that vaccines are traditionally meant to be made from dead viral agents?
EDIT: Okay I found the difference:
Here's the definition of vaccine from 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170221053411/https://dictionar...
And here's the definition right now: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/vaccine
So, the definition changed from "[an innoculated bacterium/viral agent] that [prevents disease]", to "[any substance] that [produces antibodies]".
A prophylactic is "[any substance] that [prevents disease]".
Technically that still means a prophylactic is not a vaccine and vice versa because of the requirement that vaccines generate antibodies specifically.