Educational Media Reviews Online

The Dirt Vaccine is a segment of The Edge Series which is designed to highlight scientific achievements and breakthroughs. In the 1970’s Dr. John Stanford noticed that diseases such as leprosy and tuberculosis did not occur uniformly throughout the African countries he visited, but were present in geographically irregular patterns. He isolated an organism (Mycobacterium vaccae) from soil of the lesser-infected areas and thus began his collaboration with immunologist Graham Rook.

Stanford and Rook describe how the body needs exposure to allergens in order to acquire immunity. Diseases such as asthma are much more common in the developed world, and these researchers feel that too little contact with bacteria may be the culprit. Stanford and his wife Cynthia claim that inoculations with Mycobacterium vaccae can help victims of asthma, cancer, circulatory deficiencies, leprosy, psoriasis, and tuberculosis. While these may sound like tall tales, clinical trials are underway and research on Mycobacterium vaccae is evident in current medical literature.

The video describes more than 20 years of work undertaken by Dr. Stanford and his wife. Video clips from different time periods are woven together and interspersed with other seemingly unrelated footage that actually detracts from the story. But, if the audience can look past this bit of choppy editing they will come away understanding that not all microorganisms are bad and that some are even essential to our wellbeing.

There seem to be no current videos that address the concept of harmful as well as helpful microorganisms as well as The Dirt Vaccine does and therefore this film is recommended for both school and public libraries.