What’s so special about humans that we haven’t developed an easy, cheap rabies vaccine for us? It costs $10 for a shot that lasts 3 years for my dogs, cats, and horses. Why not people?
There is probably a much larger market for pets.
If you take an active enough interest in your health to consider getting vaccinated, when you get bitten by a squirrel, you’re likely to do something about it (like, see a doctor). Your pets? Not so much.
The cost-benefit ratio is not generally worth it unless you regularly come into contact with potentially rabid animals. Although vaccines are miraculous and everyone should maintain a current vaccination schedule with boosters as their GP recommends, there’s a non-zero risk of side effects with vaccines. Since by far the greatest rabies vector for humans is our pets, by vaccinating our pets, we reap the benefits without any risk.
I’m not convinced of that. 55,000 people die a year of rabies, worldwide. Of course, most of those are in developing countries, but in those regions, I bet the market is pretty good. Even in the US, with bat-transmitted rabies, if there was a cheap, safe vaccine I’m guessing a lot of people would choose to get it. Tons of people get flu shots every year, and you’re a hell of a lot more likely to die if you contract rabies than if you contract the flu.
Humans are at greatly reduced risk for contracting rabies compared to other animals.
If we were constantly roaming around, sniffing at, eating and getting into fights with rabid creatures* it would make sense to get immunized with a long-lasting rabies vaccine. As it is, the cost and potential (though rare) for significant side effects would outweigh the benefits.
As to why current human rabies vaccination is more expensive and complicated than dog rabies vaccination, I suspect that the requirements for complete effectiveness in a potentially infected host are more stringent than those for prevention in a dog that gets frequent boosters.
*I will omit the obvious West Virginia jokes.
I guess you can argue that for first world dwellers. But surely those in developing countries would be interested?
According to a previous dope thread on the subject, the price difference is due almost entirely to liability costs. It’s more expensive to get sued for a bad batch that kills a human than a dog.
My lord, that’s some terrible logic. You are a hell of a lot more likely to get the flu than rabies. Only one or two people die from rabies in the US every year. Not one or two thousand, 1 or 2.
ETA: That was in the 90s. It’s basically down to 0 now.
Indeed. And while 55000 rabies deaths is bad, the 30-40000 annual worldwide flu deaths is almost right up there, with dozens if not hundreds of flu related deaths in the US alone.
There are millions of flu infections annually with hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations (with concomitant loss of productivity).
The deaths may be on a similar scale but the overall impact of the flu is orders of magnitude greater.
Antibob, I think you’re looking at pediatric flu deaths. There are usually more than 200,000 flu deaths each season, worldwide.
Oops. 30-40000 annual US flu deaths with dozens/hundreds of infant deaths in the US. Not paying proper attention to scale.
I think everyone working on neglected diseases is working on malaria.
From W.H.O.website:
"Rabies is present on all continents with the exception of Antartica, but more than 95% of human deaths occur in Asia and Africa. Once symptoms of the disease develop, rabies is nearly always fatal.
Rabies is a neglected disease of poor and vulnerable populations whose deaths are rarely reported."
Doesn’t sound like vaccination in countries like the US would do anything about rabies deaths.
And their is no money to be made selling it to folks who can’t pay for it.
I got vaccinated by the Navy so it didn’t cost me anything. I was dealing with animals enough that I was outside in the barn around sacks of feed grain and in barns are rats, mice and bats and you can get bitten by a bat and not feel it [seriously sharp tiny teeth] and animal control highly recommended that I get vaccinated.
Time before last of boostering I was also good for the whole overseas package, including Black Death - I figured I was good to go if I accidentally fell through a time warp into the middle ages 
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About 9 years ago I went to India on a dignitary protection detail. This was just a few months after the tsunami. There were all sorts of shots we had to get/update before receiving a visa. One that was offered but not required was a rabies inoculation.
Antibiotic will do you for Y. pestis.
In third world countries, where people are more likely to be exposed to rabies, there are already problems with vaccine delivery. One of the major hurdles to be overcome lies with the cold-chain. The majority of vaccines must be kept at temperatures between 2-8 C. In areas where refrigeration is rare, this is a far from trivial problem. For example, there are villages in M’batto (Cote d’Ivoire) that are only accessible by foot. The nearest roads to some of these areas are themselves only accessible by motorcycle or bike. It is not going to be too difficult to transport a couple of coolers full of vaccines to these areas, but with each additional vaccine people are going to be inoculated with, either the number of coolers required for vaccine transport goes up or the number of people who can be vaccinated goes down.
Peace Corps volunteers in affected countries get them regularly.
The current vaccine isn’t great. Anyone exposed will still need treatment, it just means they need fewer shots. It’s only considered to provide immunity for 2-3 years, and it is outlandishly expensive.