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Vintage Diseases Making a Comeback
An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC has a piece on a recent resurgence in some old-timey diseases. Mumps, Whooping Cough, and Rickets are making a comeback, back in style like it's 1955." From the article: "Public-health officials certainly weren't expecting to get 'bitten' by mumps this year. Although the virus has been circulating in British kids since 2000, it hadn't caused much trouble in the United States since an outbreak in Kansas 18 years ago. The Midwest is the epicenter again, but the victims are primarily college students, not children. Once a childhood disease, the virus has now taken hold in university towns. That's partly because crowded dorms and cafeterias are breeding grounds for germs that are spread by sneezing and coughing."
Overlay a map of illegal immigrant concentrations with out breaks of these and related outbreaks. You will notice something.
It's caused by a lack of vitamin D. Children develop Rickets, typified by "bow bones." Adults get osteomalacia, with an increase in fractures. Rickets has nothing to do with "vintage diseases." All someone has to do to prevent it is a) better diet b) multivitamin c) suntan. mumps, pertussis, etc. are a different story...
We do vaccinate against all of the usual suspects - MMR, TB, Tetinus etc.
However, thanks to Rupert Murdock's rag http://www.thesun.co.uk/ a large number of parents became afraid of the MMR jab, and thus let their children go without.
All of that flies in the face of the scientific evidence, and of the risks - i.e. your kids are at more risk from the diseases themselves than they are a reaction to the MMR vaccine.
Taking a look at some of the downmodded posts, I took one of their ideas, and took a nice overlay of (known) illegal immigrant population centers and outbreaks. The similarity? About 75% of the areas do overlap. That doesn't necessarily mean anything but it does raise interesting thoughts/possibilities.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Part of the problem is that many parents now associate the significant increase in autism in recent decades with the MMR. In many cases the condition becomes manifest *immediately* after the vaccination causing a drastic difference in the child.
One theory holds that it's the combination all three at once that brings on the disease in susceptible individuals. Another is that it's mercury. Until recently these vaccines were laced with Thiomersal (Thimerosal?) which contains ethyl mercury. Methyl mercury is extremely toxic; elemental mercury is relatively inert in the body; the effects of ethyl mercury are officially unknown. The questioning of the MMR, or the mercury-containing version, seems to be a bigger controversy, and more acted upon by parents, in the UK than in USA, but there's a lot about it on www and many parents are concerned here too.
Of course the health authorities reactions to these parental concerns have ranged from derision to contempt to hostility. They refuse to offer the vaccines separately and then blame parents who are reluctant to give them together. They reject any concerns about the mercury as quackery. Studies in journals have purported to show no effects from the doses of mercury. The ingredient (a preservative) has been officially banned now, but was not recalled, so it is still in doses in stocks used by doctors, clinics.
Isn't MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) a standard set of vacines everyone gets before they go into school?
Yes, but most schools allow a waiver. In which case the parents sign away the rights to sue the school.
How long are those supposed to be effective?
As a educator, my school recommends the staff gets boosters every 10 years, due to our higher then normal exposure.
As far as bad MMR batches go, there was knowledge that the MMR vaccines given in the mid 1970s were possibly ineffective. How I found this out was at a pre-college physical back in 1992, I got another MMR dose "just in case" because I was a female of childbearing age. Anyway, a few years later, when I was in school, there were cases of measles on several different college campuses, which lead to universities demanding proof of immunization before registering for classes.
The author the report further states, " In 2003, nearly 26 percent of foreign-born TB patients in the United States were from Mexico ".
The author also warns, "Federal data suggest that as many as 10 percent of the approximately 1,000 Mexicans who emigrate to the United States daily probably are infected with Chagas , said Dr. Louis V. Kirchhoff, a Chagas specialist and a professor at the University of Iowa's medical school". Chagas is fatal and kills you via a set of debilitating chronic conditions which manifest themselves decades after initial infection.
It's called herd immunity.
Here are the equations relevant to immunizing a large populace from a disease.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
a bad batch of vaccines were to blame for a measles outbreak in Texas in 1986-87... I was only 13 at the time, but I don't remember it breaking out nationwide... hundreds of kids 15-16yrs old got it... my brother was one of them, but both my sisters and I were unaffected...
The thing with the MMR vaccine now is that they suggest a booster at about 18, but it isn't manditory (or even widely known that it is offered, really) so I imagine that is why we are seeing an outbreak among college-age people...
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from Mediocre Minds - A. Einstein
They didn't call rickets an "infectious disease", they called it an old disease that is making a resurgence.
From the article:
"As if they didn't have their hands full with mumps and whooping cough, doctors are also starting to worry about other blasts from the past. National statistics haven't been collected, but many papers in the medical literature argue that rickets--a vitamin deficiency long thought to be a relic of the 19th century--is increasing among African-American and Hispanic kids, particularly in the North. Doctors blame it on everything from an increase in breast-feeding (breast milk doesn't contain much vitamin D) to the overuse of sunscreen (the body needs ultraviolet light to produce the vitamin).
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Plague has been around for a LONG time. In fact, one of the hottest spots in the world for it, is Colorado. That is why the branch is located at CDC-Ft. Collins.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm not sure if it is this way everywhere, but here in West Virginia at around 5th grade it is offered at school, but your parents must sign a permission slip. It is free of charge, but many students do not take the paper home because they do not want to get the shot.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
The link between vaccines and autism had to do with a preservative that included mercury in it. This has been replaced with a non-mercury preservative, and I believe most of those batches have since been used or replaced.
My Sysadmin Blog
I don't recall hearing about autism claims directly related to the MMR vaccine, but I do recall hearing a bunch of noise about Thimerosal.
Thimerosal is a preservative (used since the 1930's) to increase the shelf life of vaccines. It has ethylmercury in it, which is where the possible link to autism came from.
According to the CDC: "Measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), varicella (chickenpox), and inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) have never contained thimerosal."
Even though the CDC says there doesn't seem to be anything to worry about (most vaccines have no Thimerosal in 'em), you can ask for vaccinations without the Thimerosal preservative. AFAIK, the only vaccine that still uses it is the flu vaccine.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Rickets??
That's Vitamin D deficiency. That's not an infectious disease --- that's people having a panic about suntans and fat in the diets. Let kids have regular whole milk (which is Vitamin D enriched) and play in the sun without dipping them in sunscreen and it'll go away.
The fact that these outbreaks are college kids in the midwest implies to me that there significant vaccination problems with groups outside of illegal aliens. Do you ever go to Whole Foods? If you do, take a look at some of the literature there sometime. I remember seeing a magazine with a cover story about a pregnant woman who had proudly refused AZT and other AIDS medicine because, i guess, she didn't "believe" in it. Of course, to be fair I guess, the idea that you even might be giving your kid autism is scary as hell.
I'm a law student at the University of Kansas, where the outbreak hit a few weeks ago.
The outbreak hit despite the school's immunization policy, which has always required proof of two vaccinations against MMR.
It would seem, as a previous commenter suggests, and as some news reports corroborate, that the outbreak is affecting those already vaccinated.
""
Most of the current cases have been among people who were vaccinated. But that doesn't mean the vaccine has become less effective, Seward said.
No vaccine is capable of protecting everyone who receives it, she said. Five percent to 10 percent of people vaccinated for the mumps will fail to gain immunity.
These are probably the people who are becoming ill.
"The mumps vaccine is still protecting huge numbers of people," Seward said. "We would expect thousands of people to get sick if there wasn't good immunity in the community."
""
-The Kansas City Star
A lot of these childhood diseases actually help strengthen the immune system. Here is an article from The Lancet, which explains that, while the measles vaccine does stop you from getting a rash...the rash is actually the body killing the virus. By stopping the rash, many vaccinated people get MUCH MORE SERIOUS diseases later on in life because they still have the virus, but because of the vaccine, the body can't get rid of it. The biggest majority of these diseases are a pain, but rarely life threatening. I would much rather have measles than lupus erythematosus, Scheurmann's diseases and chondromalacia, which are all chronic degenerative diseases...which means the doctor says, "it sucks to be you." -- Usurper_ii
More info:
-=-=-=-=-
An article in the January 5, 1985 issue of The Lancet is titled "Measles Virus Infection Without Rash in Childhood is Related to Disease in Adult Life." The research, based in Denmark, investigated the histories of people who claimed they did not have measles when they were children. Many of these people with no measles rash as a child, however, were found to have in their bloodstream antibody evidence of the measles infection. Significant numbers of these people had been vaccinated for measles, and "A high proportion of such individuals were found in adult life to have developed immuno-reactive diseases such as sebacious skin disease, tumours and degenerative disease of the bone and cartridge. These included cervical cancer, skin cancers and cases of multiple sclerosis."
The fact that the normal progression of measles was halted by the vaccination appears to have prevented the body from destroying the measles virus. This destruction of the virus takes place in the "spots" for which measles is known, but when the vaccine prevents the spots and fever from occurring, the measles virus is not destroyed, and stays in the body through adulthood, the medical journal article explains.
The Lancet article is further quoted by Chaitow, concluding that, "If this association is correct, absence of a rash may imply that intracellular virus escapes neutralization during the acute infection, and this, in turn, might give rise to developmental disease subsequently."
"Put simply this means that, as part of the process of neutralizing the invading virus, the body literally 'burns' up the cells which contain (measles virus). This incineration takes place at the site of the spots or rash, which measles are known for. If this is stopped in some way (as by an inoculation with a vaccine) then the rash is prevented and the virus survives and lives on in the body, only to cause havoc later," Chaitow writes. Among these people vaccinated for measles and who did not have a rash, the diseases they displayed later in life included lupus erythematosus, Scheurmann's diseases and chondromalacia, which are all chronic degenerative diseases.
"This research confirms the worst fears of those who have speculated on the possibility of viruses remaining dormant for many years after immunization. It also shows the folly of suppressing a self-healing mechanism, such as is displayed by the healthy body in response to infection. A healthy child will suffer no ill-effects from infection by measles virus. A child whose immune function has been modified and impaired by immunization methods, will be unable to adequately deal with such a virus, and may later suffer chronic degenerative disease, of one sort or another. This is no longer mere speculation but is, of course, not proved beyond all doubt. However, there is sufficient evidence to allow for the calling of a halt to the direction in which immunization is taking the human race, and to ask for emphasis to be restored to that aspect of the defense mechanism which has been neglected, the nutritional effort which can boost defenses without harmful potentials," Chaitow suggests.
And the British author concludes, "We have seen earlier that the possibility exists for transfer of genetic material from viruses in the body, to the cells of the body, thus altering their code and their future pattern of reproduction. If malignant changes are part of that new genetic code, then that is what will be produced as the cell reproduces."
Ron Paul
In all fairness, pharmacutical patents and medical regulations create a deep bias in the industry that make it so that the medical systems best interests are not aligned with our best interests. Just because a person doesn't trust the pharmacutical/medical system doesn't mean that they distrust scientific method or rational thought. The pharmacutical industry has earned this reputation, every year there is a new big mega lawsuit over some miracle drug whose side effects were covered up. Every year there is a new push to outlaw or regulate vitimans and natural herbs.
In many countries, they try to share medical info with the community. In the US they try to hide it and the only response you will ever get to a symptiom is - "go see a doctor". In many countries you can just walk into a store and pick up an antibiotic, here you need to go thru half a dozen specialists and a pharmacist.
4. the New-ager/Far Left wing hippie types that believe the gov and science is out to get them.
Actually, most of the "the government is out to get me" people I know are right-wingers and libertarians. Of the people I know that won't vaccinate, all but one of them are of that variety. The one that is a hippie liberal is against most artificial things like vaccinations, but also including things like pesticides, growth hormones, chemical fertilizers (rather than good old bullshit), etc.
Both ends are a little "out there" for me, but I'm more afraid of right-wing wackos than left-wing wackos. The right-wingers tend to kill people when they get upset, lefties just get stoned.
I don't recall hearing about autism claims directly related to the MMR vaccine, but I do recall hearing a bunch of noise about Thimerosal.
There were claims about the MMR vaccine and autism. It is mostly unrelated to the claims about thimerosal. The simplistic version is: in the English speaking media, the people who complained about MMR were mostly in the UK, while the people who complained about thimerosal were mostly in the US.
Subsequent studies have generally indicated that neither thimerosal nor MMR make a significant contribution to the rate of autism.
Of course, vaccines can have serious side effects, including death and lesser ailments. But OTOH getting vaccinated is much safer than getting a disease like measles, whooping cough, etc.
By the way, it was my understanding that shingles is the return of chickenpox that has remained in the body since a childhood infection, and it can return multiple times. While I'm at it, some of the complications from shingles include deafness, blindness, and facial paralysis. I'd really really like to not experience that.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Why is it racist to note that diseases once virtually non-existent in the US are making a comeback, and that immigration is *one* of the causes?
It's not. If all immigration went through centralized locations it could possibly be dealt with as well.
Most people who are getting TB these days anyways are getting drug-resistant TB. Either they're indigent (homeless/drug addicts), work with indigents, or work with patients in a hospital setting.
Anyone who says it is is trying to utliize victimization propaganda to suit their agenda.
Don't forget, that medicines like Rumicade and Humira (monoclonal antibodies for treating rheumatoid arthritis) oddly enough increase chances of getting Tb as well. I think it's becasue the action these monoclonal antibodies target, Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF), somehow makes it easier for Tb bacteria to take hold.
Most of the people who typically get Anthrax infections (rare, but it still happens) are wool handlers, shearers, or handle sheep hides at slaughter houses. Oddly enough, at least for slaughter house workers, prior to 1991, they were the only group really required to get the existing Anthrax vaccination. So, if it so happens that most of the people who do these jobs these days are immigrants (central americans, probably undocumented, working in sheep slaughterhouses, Kiwi or Aussie shearers working on work visas), does making them get Anthrax vaccine constitute job-related racism? No.
Besides, if you're leaving your western civilization country to go to various tropical locations, you're required to get various prophylactic shots to guard against various nasty tropical diseases as a condition of getting your passport in-line as well, so it's hard to see the inverse as being "racist", too. Isn't it just as racist/colonialist/whatever to decide that every country in Africa is just a festering cesspool of malaria, sleeping sickness, etc.?, and that continuing to push this requirement creates a mindset that these countries are just inherently 4th-class to the rest of the world?
Again, because unpasteurized milk comes from cows, the biggest problem isn't with TB, it's with shit-borne contagions (E. Coli, Listeria, etc) finding their way into the raw milk, either through contamination getting into the milking equipment or being passed into the milk via the cow itself. Do aged cheeses have problems with these bacteria, or is it only soft cheeses (these two types of cheeses have far different pH levels that are probably key factors in which bacteria grow in the cheese and which don't).
Besides, it's far, FAR easier to get farm eggs that haven't been "inspected" than it is to get raw cow's milk in the US, at least. Just drive around a rural area, and someone's gonna have a shingle out trying to sell farm eggs for $1.50/dz (common around where I live) or something outrageous like that.
FDA regs for selling non-USDA chicken eggs are:
1) meet criteria for Grade B eggs: shell intact (no cracks or checks), ungraded (i.e., egg isn't candled to determine size or quality of yolk or white, check for blood spots or meat spots, etc), and sell in an unmarked, new package. They DON'T have to be cleaned, although they sure do look better in a eggcrate if they are! Farmer does *not* have to be registered with US Dept of Agriculture to sell the eggs off the farm or farmer's market, but some states (e.g., Washington) require farmer to register with state and have a permit. No one checks on off-the-farm egg sales. Is the risk any worse for contacting a nasty salmonella or e. coli infection from these eggs compared to the commercially grown eggs? WEll, the only problems from eggs I can recall hearing about involve...commercially grown eggs and undercooked product.
USDA regs require stores to sell only USDA-inpected eggs.
Don't worry, the USDA uses the best statistical and sampling methods to mechanically and optoelectronically grade and evaluate egg quality, and to ensure the safety of eggs maximizes their quality in a retail environment.