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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."
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...
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.
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.
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.
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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!
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