Program for 06_05_2019
Larry Rumans, an infectious disease specialist, gave a detailed talk related to the current news story about the recent outbreak of measles. He said most physicians in the U.S. have never seen an infectious disease because of the effectiveness of vaccines. However, they are not gone. Examples are measles, rubella, diphtheria, polio, pertussis and tetanus.
Vaccination was discovered in India hundreds of years ago when people found that using pus from a small pox blister could keep healthy people from getting “Variola” or small pox. Edward Jenner in 18th century England also identified the immunity of cow maids who were in contact with the cow pox.
Vaccines are a benign form of a virus, bacteria or toxin which produces antibodies in the body to protect against the virulent forms. There are active and passive vaccines. Active are the kind that produce antibodies and passive are antibodies taken from an individual and donated to another who may not be able to tolerate an active vaccine.
Larry discussed the belief that the MMR vaccine causes autism. The belief became widespread because of an article in Lancet magazine which later proved to have been falsified. Another concern was mercury which was used as a preservative in multidose vaccines but is no longer used. Aluminum is used to boost effectiveness but in very small amounts. Polio vaccines use an inactivated virus. A new ebola vaccine used in Africa seems to be showing good results. Most individuals born before 1967 are immune to measles.
Flu and pneumonia vaccines are the most important vaccines for older people. The flu vaccine needs to be given yearly because the virus mutates. A multi-strain flu vaccine is being worked on but it is difficult because of the virus’ constant mutation. The pneumonia vaccine is effective and tolerated.
The “Yellow Card”, an immunization record is still in use for travel to certain parts of the world.