Vaccine one of the vaccine components is more robust than the others and suppresses the growth and immune response to the other components. This phenomenon was first noted in the trivalent Sabin polio vaccine, where the amount of serotype 2 virus in the vaccine had to be reduced to stop it from interfering with the "take" of the serotype 1 and 3 viruses in the vaccine. This phenomenon has also been found to be a problem with the dengue vaccines currently being researched, where the DEN-3 serotype was found to predominate and suppress the response to DEN-1, −2 and −4 serotypes.
Hepatitis B vaccine the vaccine still in use today. In 1976, Blumberg had won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on hepatitis B (sharing it with Daniel Carleton Gajdusek for his work on kuru). In 2002, Blumberg published a book, "Hepatitis B: The Hunt for a Killer Virus". In the book, according to Paul A. Offit—Hilleman's biographer and an accomplished vaccinologist himself—Blumberg... ... claimed that the hepatitis B vaccine was his invention. Maurice Hilleman's name is mentioned once... Blumberg failed to mention that it was Hilleman who had figured out how to inactivate hepatitis B virus, how to kill