With the Russian plague scare all over the internet, new focus and questions are being asked about the Oxford team that made the AstraZeneca COVID shot and why they’ve developed a Black Death vaccine, and why British military scientists want the UK to stockpile it.
This plague vaccine is built on the same platform as the AstraZeneca COVID shot, which was pulled worldwide in 2024 after the company admitted in court it can cause rare but dangerous blood clots. Now the same people want governments to stockpile a plague version, based on a trial that’s far too small to catch that kind of problem. And plague is a disease that cheap antibiotics already cure when they’re given early.
On Tuesday, when we covered the second reported death in Irkutsk, we said vaccine talk would start showing up right behind the fear, like it did with COVID. It took about two days.
What the Oxford Trial Found, and Why We Should Be Asking Bigger Questions
The vaccine is called ChAdOx1 Plague, and the people behind it should sound familiar. Oxford began testing it in July 2021, using the same basic vaccine platform developed for the AstraZeneca COVID shot. It uses a modified chimpanzee cold virus to deliver plague proteins into the body and trigger an immune response. The initial trial involved just 40 adults between the ages of 18 and 55.
According to the trial registry, participants experienced sore arms and mild to moderate flu-like symptoms, generally resolving within three days. Researchers reported no serious or unexpected adverse reactions. The vaccine also produced antibodies against both plague proteins, with two doses generating stronger responses than one.
But here’s what those results don’t tell you: whether the vaccine actually prevents plague. Nobody was exposed to the disease, and researchers haven’t demonstrated that the antibodies translate into real-world protection. They proved the vaccine can stimulate an immune response in a small group of healthy adults. That’s a long way from proving it works against one of history’s deadliest diseases.
Then there’s the safety question. Remember, the rare blood-clotting disorder associated with the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine wasn’t something a trial involving 40 people could reasonably be expected to detect. Those complications occurred at rates measured in cases per 100,000 doses. A study this small tells you almost nothing about similarly rare complications. That doesn’t mean Oxford’s plague vaccine is dangerous. It means we don’t have enough information to know what the risks might be.
And that brings us to the bigger problem nobody seems particularly interested in discussing: the dangerous games being played inside laboratories that handle some of the deadliest pathogens known to mankind.
Look at what’s happening in Russia. Reports surrounding the death of a young scientist at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute have raised questions about laboratory safety and the possibility of exposure to dangerous pathogens. Russian authorities have disputed suggestions that her death was connected to plague. A laboratory leak has not been established, but the circumstances raise legitimate questions about what happened and whether the public is getting the full story.
Think about how insane this situation is. We’re talking about laboratories handling organisms capable of killing people within days, where a single containment failure could put workers and potentially the surrounding community at risk. The public is expected to trust that every safety procedure is being followed, every experiment is necessary, and every government will immediately tell the truth if something goes wrong.
We’ve already lived through a pandemic that demonstrated just how devastating a new infectious disease can be. The origins of COVID-19 remain disputed, and the possibility of a laboratory-associated incident has never been conclusively resolved. Now we’re watching questions emerge after a scientist’s death at a facility that studies deadly pathogens, with authorities once again asking everyone to trust their reassurances.
Oxford’s researchers aren’t conducting the same kind of work as scientists handling live plague bacteria in Russia, and developing a vaccine isn’t itself evidence of dangerous experimentation. But the broader question deserves an answer: How much risk are governments and researchers willing to impose on the public in the name of preparing for the next pandemic?
Prof. Sir Andrew Pollard, who heads the Oxford Vaccine Group, acknowledged that the UK currently has no licensed plague vaccine and described the country’s immediate plague risk as very low.
So perhaps we should be asking two questions instead of one. Do we need better ways to protect people against dangerous diseases? Absolutely. But shouldn’t we also be demanding far greater accountability and transparency from the laboratories studying those diseases, especially when one mistake could create the very emergency they’re supposedly trying to prevent?
Why the Military Wants It Stockpiled
The stockpile idea comes out of Porton Down, the British military’s biological lab. In September 2024 a Porton Down scientist and researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch published a paper in npj Vaccines urging governments and global health funders to speed plague vaccines into human testing. They pointed to plague still circulating in wild animals, its ability to spread person to person, and the chance of strains that antibiotics can’t kill.
There’s something to the superbug worry, but not much. A plague strain resistant to every recommended antibiotic has been found exactly once, in a 16-year-old in Madagascar in 1995. The Institut Pasteur researchers who found it warned the resistance genes could spread because they sit on a piece of DNA bacteria can trade back and forth. Thirty years on, that hasn’t happened in any meaningful way. Pollard himself has said the superbug risk is very low.
What’s really driving this is bioweapons. Porton Down has been working on a plague vaccine since the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq was suspected of trying to weaponize it. That’s a fair thing for a military to worry about. It just has nothing to do with the “next pandemic” headlines being slapped on the story.
A lot of posts are calling this a rush to vaccinate people, and that’s wrong. The trial took years to report anything, and nobody has suggested giving this shot to the public, let alone making anyone take it.
They’ve Promised This Before
Porton Down in 2004. British government scientists said their plague vaccine had passed safety testing and could be licensed in one to two years. Twenty-two years later the UK still doesn’t have one.
The American plague vaccine. The U.S. had a licensed plague vaccine until 1999, when the only company making it quit. Troops in Vietnam got it, and it seemed to help against bubonic plague from flea bites. It did nothing against pneumonic plague, the kind that spreads through coughing and the kind suspected in Irkutsk.
AstraZeneca’s COVID shot. It went into arms in more than 150 countries. AstraZeneca spent years fighting claims that it caused clotting, then in February 2024 admitted in court papers that in very rare cases it can cause a clotting disorder called TTS. The disorder has been linked to at least 81 deaths in the UK, and more than 50 victims and families are suing. Three months after that admission the company pulled the vaccine worldwide, said it was because demand had dropped, and called the timing a coincidence. People remember that, and a “safe in 40 people” headline from the same team isn’t going to settle many nerves.
What’s Going On in Russia
The plague vaccine story is circulating again because of Irkutsk. Daria Shipilova, a 28-year-old technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, died after a suspected exposure, and nearly 200 of her contacts were put under observation. The Kremlin has told Russians to ignore anything that isn’t official, and the WHO says Russia told it no plague cases have been recorded.
Russia is one of the few countries that already has licensed plague vaccines. Nobody has said whether Shipilova had one. What we do know is that news reports got deleted, local warnings went up and came down, and people there spent days not knowing what was true.
All of this is landing on a country that’s already short on a lot. Diesel hit a record $6.53 a gallon, and Russia and China have both stopped exporting it. The supply chain never really bounced back after COVID. If a real outbreak scare hit the U.S., antibiotics would be one of the first things people hoarded, and the shelves wouldn’t refill fast.
How to Prepare for the Next Outbreak Scare
Whether the next outbreak is real, exaggerated, or another government screwup, the result could be the same: panic buying, empty shelves, overwhelmed hospitals, and supply chains taking another hit. You don’t need to believe every pandemic headline to recognize how quickly things can go sideways.
Get your supplies in order now. Keep at least 30–60 days of food, water, medications, and household essentials on hand. Don’t wait until everyone else is panic buying. Start with our long-term food storage guide and pandemic preparedness resources.
Understand the actual threat. Plague is treatable with antibiotics when caught early, but pneumonic plague can turn deadly fast. The CDC recommends immediate antibiotic treatment when doctors suspect infection. Know the symptoms, avoid contact with sick or dead rodents, and don’t assume every respiratory illness is plague. If exposure is suspected, get medical attention immediately rather than trying to treat it yourself.
Prepare for disruptions, not just disease. A serious outbreak scare could mean missed paychecks, closed businesses, travel restrictions, or difficulty getting prescriptions. Keep emergency cash available, have backup ways to get information, and make sure your family can stay home without depending on daily trips to the store.
The biggest lesson from COVID wasn’t just how fast a disease can spread. It was how quickly everyday life can be disrupted when governments panic, businesses shut down, and everyone suddenly needs the same supplies. Prepare while things are still relatively normal, because once the panic starts, you’re already behind
