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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."
Isn't MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) a standard set of vacines everyone gets before they go into school? How long are those supposed to be effective?
In a side note: the girl sitting next to me right now (at work) was gone with the mumps a couple weeks ago.
1864 Mumps: A little fruity, but solid, bold taste. Goes well with chicken (pox).
Vintage diseases huh? I guess that makes them retroviruses.
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...
These resurgences stem from the growing proportion of un-inocculated people in the U.S. When the proportion of people who are invulnerable to infection and transmission goes below a critical threshold, these diseases can spread through the population. The proportion of people who are not innoculated is growing because a calculated cost-benefits analysis reveals that it is wise to avoid some vaccines. There are some diseases that are now so rare in the U.S. that the expected health impact from the vaccine outweighs the risk of being unvaccinated in a by-and-large vaccinated society. In game theory terms, we have a game with two coalitions, Vaccinating and Non-vaccinating, and a couple hundred million players. All players will not join the Vaccinating coalition, because when the proportion of players is significantly above the critical virulence threshold, parents see an advantage to be gained in abandoning the Vaccinating coalition strategy and safeguarding the health of their children to some non-trivial degree. Given that the players in the game are going to continue to be free to choose whether to be vaccinators of their kids or not, not all people will make that choice. And not just because of some primitive superstition or political inclination, either. It's simple opportunism. The only thing that will shift the equilibrium of populations of vaccinators to non-vaccinators are environmental factors that affect each players' benefits analysis, such as: Fear - hysterical news coverage about the mumps and such Conformity Pressures - public shame upon those parents who break with the Vaccination Coalition of the Willing Misinformation - hysterical news coverage that insists that vaccinations don't have any negative health consequences Legislation - rolling back of laws that allow parents to not vaccinate, such as the one in Texas Such actions can be taken, but beg the question of whether they should be taken. Unless we are going to actually eradicate a disease, the Nash Equilibrium that results in the greatest good for society is the equilibrium set by the disease's virulence, A.K.A. only enough people get vaccinated for it to be an advantageous strategy to the rest to not get vaccinated.
Foreigners coming into America and afflicting the people living there with new dieseases? For some reason, I feel like I've heard that one before.
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.
If you support the USA May Day demonstrations, you can blame the next disease you catch on your own political inclinations.
Oh come on. That's bullshit. There's a difference between supporting illegal immigration and supporting changes in immigration laws to make it easier for foreigners to work here legally. If they were here legally, they wouldn't have to avoid getting medical treatment, such as vaccinations, due to a fear of getting deported.
This is veering a bit off topic, but it's common knowledge that immigrants come here illegally because there is a demand for their labor. Why not allow them to come here legally, and in return, get the tax revenue we need to support their presence?
I guess we're getting this story now because people wised-up about "Bird Flu". Which, of course, was the successor to the short-lived "Super Volcanos" scare, which was itself the successor to the "World-ending Asteroid" scare story.
It's not that the stories themselves are complete nonsense, it's the way that they are handled. It's as if each one is the focus of world attention for a few weeks, then COMPLETELY disappearing when the ratings drop. Then a short intermission, and the next one comes along with more hype than the last.
I sure am glad that asteroids and bird flu aren't a threat anymore (who fixed them, BTW?), and I can focus on being scared by this new thing.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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