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by blendergeek 1970 days ago
They were testing a vaccine to prevent hookworm infection. [0] After giving the experimental vaccine, they intentionally inoculated the research subjects with hookworms to measure whether the vaccine prevented hookworm infection.

[0] https://twitter.com/JimmyBernot/status/1354443850153144321

1 comments

Is inoculate the right word in this context?
Yes. While today, the more common meaning of the word is "to introduce immunologically active material (such as an antibody or antigen) into especially in order to treat or prevent a disease", an older but still used meaning is "to introduce a microorganism into".

These definitions were pulled from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inoculate