A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and "remember" it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters.

Vaccines can be prophylactic (example: to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by any natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (e.g. vaccines against cancer are also being investigated; see cancer vaccine).

The term vaccine derives from Edward Jenner's 1796 use of cow pox (Latin variola vaccinia, adapted from the Latin vaccīn-us, from vacca, cow), to inoculate humans, providing them protection against smallpox.

Vaccines do not guarantee complete protection from a disease. Sometimes, this is because the host's immune system simply does not respond adequately or at all. This may be due to a lowered immunity in general (diabetes, steroid use, HIV infection, age) or because the host's immune system does not have a B cell capable of generating antibodies to that antigen.

Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (born Piers Stefan O'Meara; 30 March 1965), known professionally as Piers Morgan, is a British journalist and television presenter. He is editorial director of First News, a national newspaper for children.

Morgan branched into television mainly as a presenter, but has become best known as a judge or contestant in reality television programmes. In the UK, he was a judge on Britain's Got Talent. Morgan is best known in the United States as a judge on the show America's Got Talent, and as the winner of The Celebrity Apprentice. On 17 January 2011, he began hosting Piers Morgan Tonight for CNN in the timeslot previously occupied by Larry King Live after the retirement of host Larry King.

Morgan has authored eight books, including three volumes of memoirs.

Piers Morgan was born on 30 March 1965, in Guildford, Surrey, England, to Eamon Vincent O'Meara, a dentist, of Dorking, Surrey, and Gabrielle Georgina Sybille (née Oliver). His father died when he was one year old; his mother subsequently remarried. He has three older siblings. His ancestry includes Irish, Portuguese, Scottish, and English. Morgan was raised Catholic. Named Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan by his stepfather, Morgan attended an independent school called Cumnor House from the ages of seven to thirteen, and then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, near Lewes, East Sussex, followed by Lewes Priory School for VI form. Morgan studied Journalism at Harlow College. After a brief career at Lloyds of London, he joined the Surrey and South London Newspaper Group in 1985, where he worked as a reporter on the South London News, and the Streatham and Tooting News. Morgan was recruited (he says headhunted by editor Kelvin MacKenzie) to join The Sun newspaper, specifically to work on the Bizarre column.

Mark Kendall (20 September 1958 – 1 May 2008) was a Welsh footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He represented his country at schoolboy, youth and Under-21 level.

Kendall, a goalkeeper, joined Tottenham Hotspur as an apprentice in March 1975, aged 16. He signed professional forms in July 1976, and went on to make his league debut on 4 November 1978 in a 2-2 draw at Norwich.

However, although he spent four seasons with Spurs, he never managed to make the goalkeeper's position his own. His final full season on the club's books saw him spend a nine-game loan period, during which he saved penalties from Steve Neville of Exeter City and Mark Smith of Sheffield Wednesday, at Division 3 Chesterfield, returning to Tottenham after Barry Daines was injured during an FA Cup-tie against Manchester United.

He signed for Newport County then of Division 3 for a club record £45,000 in September 1980 during the most successful period in the clubs long history. Kendall was part of the team that won promotion and the Welsh Cup and in the subsequent season reached the quarter-final of the 1981 European Cup Winners Cup.

Seth Franklin Berkley, M.D. (born in 1956 in New York, NY) is a medical epidemiologist by training. He is the CEO of the GAVI Alliance and a global advocate on the power of vaccines. He is also the founder and former President and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).. Graduated McBurney School, New York, 1974, he received a Bachelor of Science and medical degrees from Brown University, and trained in internal medicine at Harvard University. Berkley has been featured on the cover of Newsweek and recognized by Wired Magazine as among "The Wired 25" - a salute to dreamers, inventors, mavericks and leaders - as well as by TIME magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2009. In 2010, Fortune magazine named Berkley as one of its "Global Forum Visionaries." Speaking at the TED 2010 conference, Dr. Berkley explains how innovative vaccine design and production technologies are bringing us closer to controlling global health threats like flu and HIV.

Jennifer Ann "Jenny" McCarthy (born November 1, 1972) is an American model, comedian, actress, author, activist, and game show host. She began her career in 1993 as a nude model for Playboy magazine and was later named their Playmate of the Year. McCarthy then parlayed her Playboy fame into a successful television and film acting career. Most recently, she has written books about parenting, and has become an activist promoting the claims that vaccines cause autism and that chelation therapy helps cure it—both claims are considered false by the medical community.

McCarthy was born in Evergreen Park, Illinois to a middle-class Catholic family of Polish and Irish descent. She lived in the West Elsdon neighborhood of Chicago. She is the second of four daughters; her sisters are named Lynette, Joanne and Amy. Her cousin is Academy Award-nominated actress Melissa McCarthy of Bridesmaids and Mike and Molly. McCarthy's mother, Linda, was a housewife and courtroom custodian, and her father, Dan McCarthy, was a steel mill foreman.